Walden University

College of Education

This is to certify that the doctoral study by

Said Benamar

has been found to be complete and satisfactory in all respects,

and that any and all revisions required by
the review committee have been made.

Review Committee
Dr. Mario Castro, Committee Chairperson, Education Faculty
Dr. Stephen Butler, Committee Member, Education Faculty
Dr. Heather Caldwell, University Reviewer, Education Faculty

Chief Academic Officer

Eric Riedel, Ph.D.

Walden University
2016
 Abstract

A Case Study on Undergraduate Entrepreneurial Constructivist Learning in Morocco

by

Said Benamar

Doctoral Study Submitted in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree of

Doctor of Education

Walden University

February 2016
 Abstract

Jobs are available for university graduates with entrepreneurship skills, but

unemployment in Morocco persists because of the dissociation between university

entrepreneurship graduate skills and professional market demand. While university

graduates have achieved academic standards, they have lacked the entrepreneurial

attributes to be employable. The purpose of this case study was to explore the use of

entrepreneurship learning initiatives at Université Internationale de Casablanca (UIC), a

private for-profit university, to promote students’ employability. The constructivism and

learning paradigm frameworks served as the theoretical foundations of this project study.

The research questions addressed the effectiveness of entrepreneurship learning strategies

in the promotion of students’ employment and self-employment and what challenged

their implementation at UIC. Data were collected from 11 individual interviews with

students, academic leaders, and business professionals and from accreditation application

documents. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, and hand analyzed for the

discovery of thematic codes. Results indicated that the implementation of a capstone

project model could cultivate entrepreneurial student experience. It was recommended

that comprehensive business plan capstone projects presented the opportunity of

integrating experiential learning activities and assessment tools to develop the

entrepreneurial mindset of undergraduate students and increase their affective attachment

to the course and the university. Implications for social positive change included the use

of entrepreneurship learning to foster internal collaboration among faculty, promote

university external partnerships, and create an experiential learning environment that

motivates students to learn and achieve professional immersion.

A Case Study on Undergraduate Entrepreneurial Constructivist Learning in Morocco

by

Said Benamar

Doctoral Study Submitted in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree of

Doctor of Education

Walden University

February 2016
 ProQuest Number: 10008716

All rights reserved

INFORMATION TO ALL USERS

The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted.

In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript
and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed,
a note will indicate the deletion.

ProQuest 10008716

Published by ProQuest LLC (2016). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author.

All rights reserved.

This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code
Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC.

ProQuest LLC.
789 East Eisenhower Parkway
P.O. Box 1346
Ann Arbor, MI 48106 - 1346
 Table of Contents

List of Tables .......................................................................................................................v

List of Figures .................................................................................................................... vi

Section 1: The Problem ........................................................................................................1

Introduction ....................................................................................................................1

Definition of the Problem ..............................................................................................2

Rationale ........................................................................................................................4

Evidence of the Problem at the Local Level ........................................................... 4

Evidence of the Problem from the Professional Literature ..................................... 8

Definitions....................................................................................................................11

Significance..................................................................................................................13

Guiding/Research Question .........................................................................................14

Review of the Literature ..............................................................................................15

Conceptual Framework ......................................................................................... 15

Entrepreneurship and Learning Paradigms ........................................................... 16

Entrepreneurship and Professional Achievement ................................................. 20

Social and Ethical Entrepreneurship ..................................................................... 24

Entrepreneurship and Learning ............................................................................. 27

Implications..................................................................................................................34

Summary ......................................................................................................................35

Section 2: The Methodology..............................................................................................37

Introduction: Research Design and Approach .............................................................37

Participants ...................................................................................................................39

i
 Procedures ............................................................................................................. 39

Ethical Issues ........................................................................................................ 41

Data Collection Process ...............................................................................................42

Process Detail........................................................................................................ 42

The Role of the Researcher ................................................................................... 45

Data Analysis, Validity, and Credibility ......................................................................47

Findings........................................................................................................................50

Theme 1. Entrepreneurial Student ........................................................................ 52

Theme 2. Entrepreneurial Learning ...................................................................... 68

Theme 3. Contextual Challenges to Entrepreneurial Learning ............................. 81

Evidence of Quality .....................................................................................................86

Summary ......................................................................................................................86

Section 3: The Project ........................................................................................................90

Introduction ..................................................................................................................90

Description and Goals ..................................................................................................90

Rationale ......................................................................................................................91

The Review of Literature .............................................................................................94

Entrepreneurial Competencies .............................................................................. 94

Entrepreneurial Curriculum .................................................................................. 96

Business Plan Capstone Project ............................................................................ 98

Assessing Entrepreneurship Learning................................................................. 100

Capstone Business Plan Development Course ..........................................................103

Implementation ..........................................................................................................106

ii
 Potential Resources and Existing Supports......................................................... 106

Potential Barriers ................................................................................................ 107

Proposal for Implementation and Timetable....................................................... 108

Roles and Responsibilities .........................................................................................108

Project Evaluation ......................................................................................................110

Implications Including Social Change .......................................................................112

Internal Collaboration ......................................................................................... 112

External Partnership ............................................................................................ 113

Conclusion .................................................................................................................114

Section 4: Reflections and Conclusion ............................................................................115

Project Strengths ........................................................................................................115

Limitations .................................................................................................................116

Recommendations ......................................................................................................117

Scholarship .................................................................................................................118

Project Development and Evaluation.........................................................................119

Leadership and Change ..............................................................................................120

Analysis of Self as Scholar, Practitioner, and Project Developer ..............................121

Project’s Implications and Future Research Direction ..............................................122

Conclusion .................................................................................................................123

References ........................................................................................................................125

Appendix A: Project ........................................................................................................138

Appendix B: Student Interview Questions ......................................................................175

Appendix C: Academic Leaders Interview Questions .....................................................176

iii
Appendix D: Stakeholders Interview Questions ..............................................................177

Appendix E: Sample of Participants’ Quotes ..................................................................178

iv
 List of Tables

Table 1. Themes and Subthemes ...................................................................................... 51

v
 List of Figures

Figure 1. Logical model of entrepreneurship learning process showing relationship

between the concepts that emerged out of data analysis....................................................87

vi
 1
Section 1: The Problem

Introduction

Higher education in Morocco has been the focus of debates in forums and

conferences and central to the government’s action in recent years. The King, the higher

authority in the country, has stated that learning in schools and universities is declining in

quality and misaligned with the demands of the labor market (Texte intégral, 2013). In

response, stakeholder and community officials have established the Higher Council for

Education (HCE) and more than 15 civic organizations. The HCE has posted calls for

public consultancies and contributions on its website to resolve the educational problem

in the country. The civic society, championed by Injaz Al Maghrib, which is a member of

Junior Achievement Worldwide, and Zakoura, an association for entrepreneurship

learning and community service respectively, have organized international forums calling

for the implementation of learner-centered strategies and professional achievement.

Researchers have stated that a change agenda in this direction will be difficult

because of tensions and some constituents’ resistance to transformation (Komulainen,

Naskali, Korhonen, & Foley, 2011). However, educational leaders should exemplify an

entrepreneurial attitude to engage into transformative change for entrepreneurial

undergraduate students. Researchers have defined entrepreneurship learning and how it

leads to professional achievement and competence in a variety of ways (Bagheri & Pihie,

2011; Harkema & Schout, 2008; Komulainen et al., 2011; Mars & Aguilar, 2010; Mars &

Ginter, 2012; Nejad et al., 2012). Consequently, the focus of the learning process is on

student capacity to build autonomy, creativity, and personal initiative (Gutiérrez &
 2
Guerrero, 2012). The aim of the study was to explore the process of entrepreneurship

learning from the perspective of students, academic leaders, and stakeholders at

Université Internationale de Casablanca (UIC). The project study informed how

entrepreneurship learning impacts student professional achievement at UIC and answered

subquestions that define professional achievement from an entrepreneurial perspective

and the challenges facing academic leaders in the implementation of entrepreneurship

learning in the context of UIC.

The purpose of Section I was to define the problem and determine the rationale

for the study both in the local setting and in the larger context as described in the

scholarly literature. Specific vocabulary related to the study will be listed and defined.

The guiding research questions will be developed, and a review of the literature will be

presented following a framework for exploring entrepreneurship learning and its link to

student professional success at university settings. This section will end with implications

of this study.

Definition of the Problem

Scholars associate entrepreneurship learning to innovative educational processes

that universities and colleges undertake to develop a workforce likely to bring in positive

social change into their respective environments. As an economic outcome, researchers

recognize entrepreneurship learning as a way to create wealth, reduce unemployment,

and generate long term regional and national prosperity (Gutierrez & Guerrero, 2012;

Leino, 2011; Martin, Surikova, Pigozne, & Maslo, 2011). China, India, and the United

States have been increasingly aware about the role of entrepreneurship education in
 3
matching the needs of the marketplace. The United States has passed legislation that

promotes entrepreneurship education from K-12 through graduate school; additionally,

China’s central government has taken strategic initiatives to become an innovation-based

nation by 2020 (Leino, 2011). While developing countries in the West have made

progress in entrepreneurship education, developing nations, including Morocco, are only

beginning to implement entrepreneurship knowledge in university and college settings

(Bahji, Lefdaoui, & El Alami, 2013; Boussetta, 2003; Eze & Nwali, 2012).

Entrepreneurship education has always been linked to new business value

creation. However, researchers have extended the application of entrepreneurship

learning to create social and individuals’ values (Gutierrez & Guerrero, 2012; Martin et

al., 2012). Therefore, universities will process entrepreneurship learning through a set of

structured and articulated learning strategies that yield an enterprising environment for

learners to take initiative and become independent, creative, and autonomous. During an

economic downturn, universities and colleges should adopt innovative learning methods

to develop students’ professional achievement. Academic leaders should develop

innovative curriculums, implement learning centered methods, and establish partnerships

with the external and internal constituents to show efficacy in entrepreneurship learning

capacity building. Scholars’ research has revealed that universities using appropriate

entrepreneurship learning initiatives, as cited above, have fostered their students’

professional achievement. Professional achievement could be defined as a

multidimensional competence that covers wider aspects of human and social skills

(Botha, 2010; Gutierrez & Guerrero, 2012). Entrepreneurship learning has been
 4
dominated by business courses without practical orientation in Moroccan universities

(Boussetta, 2003). Researchers outlined that future research should be directed toward the

exploration of a practical implementation of entrepreneurship learning (Martin et al.,

2012).

Rationale

Evidence of the Problem at the Local Level

Academic institutions in Morocco have been facing many challenges created by

emerging trends in higher education. Morocco counts 15 public and seven private

universities, 216 private colleges, and 103 public colleges (Debbarh, 2011; Zammar &

Abdelbaki, 2012). The higher education sector has enrolled more than 575,000 students

in the academic year 2011-2012, 85% of whom attended public university, 6.5%

attended private institutions, and 8.5% went to vocational institutions (Louize, personal

communication, June 11, 2013). The government has implemented an emergency plan to

reform the education sector aiming at reinforcing the autonomy of universities, boosting

the private sector and improving the quality of learning. The government has assigned

12.6 billion Dirhams (1.4 billion U.S. dollars) to the implementation of the transformative

agenda of the educational sector following the directions of the emergency plan

(Debbarh, 2011). One important trend is that enrollment in public higher education has

increased from 344,123 in 2008 to 575,000 in 2012 representing a growth of 67%.

Accredited professional degrees and master’s degree have increased by 98% and 89%

respectively (Debbarh, 2011). The private higher education sector attracts less than 10%

of total enrollments. Access is a serious problem for public universities. More than
 5
190,000 students finishing high school apply for education in public universities and

colleges. However, the government could not afford to build new physical plants to

accommodate new students. The ministry of education has encouraged the establishment

of new private universities to support the development of workforce in strategic sectors

including medicine, engineering, tourism, and entrepreneurship. Private universities must

be accredited by the ministry of education in order to benefit from the label of private

university.

The UIC has been impacted by some of those trends including escalation of

enrollments, scarcity of public funding, and declining quality of learning and graduation

rates. In his recent speech to the nation on the 20th August 2013, King Mohammed the 6th

focused on the problems of higher education, arguing that its programs no longer

matched the needs of the labor market. Therefore, the King has given formal instruction

for the establishment of the high counsel for education to establish a long-term strategy to

reform education in Morocco (Mrabi, 2013). In order to accelerate reforms in higher

education, the government has drawn on the previous emergency plan program and

ratified an action plan for the period 2013-2016. The project action plan outlined 39

strategic initiatives which included the improvement of graduate employability (Ayegou,

Mahrek, Rajraji, & Talbi, 2014). The main objectives behind the initiative of

employability improvement reported in the action plan are as follows: (a) diversification

of education/training programs that include professionalizing bachelors to fit in the needs

of the labor market, (b) identification of the leading economic sectors likely to hire

graduates, and (c) concentration on educational programs encouraging professional

 6
achievement including entrepreneurship courses. Therefore, there is evidence that

professional achievement is a challenge for administrators of higher education in

Morocco (Ayegou et al., 2014). The rate of unemployment in Morocco has reached

22.7% among university graduates and 22% among vocational graduates (Zammar &

Abdelbaki, 2014). Zammar and Abdelbaki (2014) argued that, for the Moroccan state to

face the challenges of unemployment, academic leaders should design entrepreneurship

programs that enable students to develop entrepreneurial capacities and skills for venture

creation. This target could be possible if Moroccan universities decided to diversify their

teaching methods to include real case studies, first-hand experiences, and involve

professionals to work collaboratively with instructors.

The educational system in Morocco has traditionally encouraged employment

versus entrepreneurship, which could explain why graduates are skeptical about

launching their own ventures (Zammar & Abdelbaki, 2014). Zuabi (2012) stated that,

while jobs are available, challenges facing unemployment in Morocco will persist

because of the discrepancy between university graduate skills and professional market

demand. While university graduates achieved academic records, they failed to possess

entrepreneurial attributes that enable them to be hired by private firms. Rae (2007) argued

that the low rate of students’ professional achievement is due to the fragmented and

disconnected curriculum in which employment has been presented. However,

entrepreneurship education leading to self-employment is not the only way to reduce the

high rate of unemployment recognized to be the major challenge of the Moroccan

community. Effective entrepreneurship learning based on constructivist principles and

 7
anchored in the learning paradigm framework could be the best process to offer high

quality learning that encourages professional achievement leading to employment and

self-employment (Krueger, 2007; Rae, 2010).

Linkages among Moroccan universities, associations, and the private sector could

provide the collaborative structure to ensure better matching between the environment’s

needs and the curriculum. Collaboration among the constituents could offer a suitable

external environment whereby students could be sensitized to entrepreneurial activities

such as internships, job placements, networking, and other forms of collaborative

initiatives (Zuabi, 2012).

The UIC is a private university launched in 2010 by Laureate International

Universities. Because UIC operates academically on the basis of the accrediting norms of

the public education sector in Morocco, its academic leaders should consider themselves,

along with other institutional leaders, directly accountable for the declining learning

outcomes of graduates. The researcher’s professional experience within UIC in

discussions with academic and administrative leaders of the institution has yielded some

evidence that UIC’s curriculum is content driven and lecture based, and students are

bored with the traditional and passive teaching methods. As an instructor and academic

leader in the former business school I have experienced the efficacy of active learning

methods in promoting students’ entrepreneurial behaviors. The UIC stakeholders’

demands also justified conducting this project study. At one of the board meetings, the

second principal donor expressed the need to align the academic services of the
 8
university with the mission to support the learning capacity of students to become

potential entrepreneurs (J. Alaoui, personal communication, January 24, 2012).

Laureate International Universities, the main shareholder, has been developing its

own Laureate Professional Assessment (LPA) and asked its members, including UIC, to

develop indicators among which entrepreneurship achievement should be a key target (A.

Majda, personal communication, September 19, 2013). Therefore, the leadership of UIC

has encouraged academic leaders to implement entrepreneurial initiatives to promote

innovation and professional achievement among undergraduate students.

Evidence of the Problem from the Professional Literature

Scholars have defined entrepreneurship education as a process of changing the

individual’s mindset toward creative thinking and innovation to create positive change in

societies (Guven, 2013; Rae, 2007). Interest in entrepreneurship learning is triggered by

the low level of entrepreneurship programs and courses in African countries. There is

priority for ensuring the capacity in terms of faculty and facilities to facilitate

entrepreneurial learning. Eze and Nwali (2012) advocated for collaborative work with

international universities, the professional sector, and the community organizations. The

Nigerian government directed all universities to establish an entrepreneurship center with

a degree in entrepreneurship (Eze & Nwali, 2012). The authors contextualized

entrepreneurship learning in African countries where economic and social problems were

challenges. Entrepreneurship learning is associated with the learning capacity provided

by the university to develop a new African mindset likely to boost the economic

development of African countries. However, Boussetta (2003) revealed that learners

 9
engaged in a pilot entrepreneurial learning project in a leading Moroccan public

university were not successful in creating their own business and preferred being

employed.

African countries are facing challenges of unemployment among college

graduates. Even when graduates have been recruited by companies, employers are not

satisfied with the graduates’ set of developed skills (Botha, 2010; Eze & Nwali, 2012;

Kouba & Sahibeddine, 2012; Oleforo, Oko, & Akpan, 2013). Oleforo et al. (2013)

conducted research at a Nigerian university to learn if entrepreneurship learning impacted

the productivity of graduates necessary for their employment. The authors wanted to

determine if curricula content and practical experiences had relevance to graduates’

productivity and professional achievement. They found that African universities did not

equip students with skills that would make them relevant to society and labor market

demands. The research focused on the value of the joint contribution of entrepreneurship

materials of the university’s curricula and practical experience to graduates’ productivity.

Therefore, academic leaders should direct further work toward improving

entrepreneurship curricula with practical loads (Bahji, Lefdaoui, & El Alami, 2013;

Boussetta, 2003; Oleforo et al., 2013; Parry & Baird, 2012).

In their study on entrepreneurship education, Kouba and Sahibeddine (2012)

confirmed the intention of students enrolled in Moroccan universities to engage into an

entrepreneurial activity and create their own business. The authors stated that students in

Moroccan universities showed strong willingness to create their new ventures and that

there was a strong correlation between the variables of a student’s entrepreneurship

 10
intention and his entrepreneurial capacity. However, the authors found a gap in the

literature about the influence of the students’ entrepreneurial capacity and the attitude of

desirability to launch a new business. According to the authors, these findings could

encourage academic leaders of the Moroccan universities to implement entrepreneurial

courses. University Hassan II in Casablanca, has created entrepreneurship modules to

create entrepreneurial courses (Ayegou et al., 2013). However, the question is not about

what content would be in those modules, but which conceptual framework and delivery

methods are to be used in order to ensure students’ entrepreneurial achievement.

Schout and Harekma (2008) studied the impact of learning-centered strategies on

the development of entrepreneurial mindset in the context of Hague University. The

authors revealed that, despite efforts invested by the educational system prevailing in

Netherlands’ academic institutions, “few students decide to follow a career as an

entrepreneur, compared to other countries, especially the U.S.” (Schout & Harekma,

2008, p. 513). However, Schout and Harekma outlined how educational institutions could

convert those strategies into learning practical activities that foster the entrepreneurial

mindset.

Sardeshmukh and Nelson (2011) implemented a new learning approach to

entrepreneurship based on a combination of classroom exercises and experiential

activities. The authors argued that traditional and linear learning methods to

entrepreneurship that includes business plan and essays did not contribute to developing

opportunity-oriented entrepreneurial mindsets among students. The model presented by

the authors was not limited to business creation but encompassed self-managed and
 11
opportunity driven approaches to careers. Sardeshmukh and Nelson stated that

“incorporation of experiential exercise and internships in tertiary education has several

benefits in terms of the broader career context, including development of social networks

and mentoring relationships that can be leveraged in a student’s career development” (p.

52). The entrepreneurship attributes developed by Sardeshmukh and Nelson might be

important elements of graduate professional achievement, as they would be valuable

skills for any student to develop, whether they plan to work within an existing

organization or become self-employed.

Definitions

In this study, the special terms used are as follows:

Constructivism: The constructivist model of learning assumes that individuals are

responsible for their learning as they engage into a continuous and iterative process of

constructing deep and purposeful learning. The constructivist model argues that deep

learning occurs when learners considers and act on their deep mental structures, which

means prioritizing knowledge structure and learning process instead of content (Krueger,

2007).

Entrepreneurship: This term points to the individual-team leadership process of

identifying opportunities for creating business and social value and of launching new

ventures that bring together innovation and resources to exploit those opportunities (Mars

& Rhoades, 2012; Rae, 2010; Rae & Carswell, 2000).

Entrepreneurship attributes: This term identifies the set of personal and

professional skills and knowledge needed to apply innovative solutions to real situations.
 12
The attributes may include autonomy, energy, creativity, leadership, citizenship,

problem-solving, which are associated with personal development, and knowledge about

businesses and sectors, job research techniques, and requirements for building

organizational infrastructures, which are connected with the learner’s professional

development (Guven, 2013; Rae, 2007).

Entrepreneurship learning: This term identifies the learning environments and

processes that activate the transfer of entrepreneurship attributes to the learner (Guven,

2013). Therefore, it is concerned with how individuals construct meaningful learning in

a continuous process of acting on their economic and social environments, of creating

opportunities, and of launching and managing new ventures. It is not limited to functional

knowledge acquisition but extends to active learning in real situations involving

connection among doing, understanding, and sensing (Rae & Carswell, 2000).

Experiential learning: Learning is a process whereby learners create knowledge

through the transformation of their experience. From an experiential perspective, learning

is a continuous process that adapts to the learner’s social and psychological context

producing new ideas or what Kolb calls the future of learning (Kolb, 1984).

Learning paradigm college: This term is used to identify innovative academic

institutions that place the learner at the center of their mission statements and their

institutional effectiveness. Academic leaders focus on learning instead of teaching and on

learning outcomes instead of learning input (Bosch et al., 2008; O’Banion, 2000).

Professional achievement: This concept refers to a defined set of skills,

knowledge, understanding, working behaviors, and personal attributes that qualify an

 13
individual to be employed or exploit new business or social opportunities in which he

could be successful and energized (Eickoff, 2008; Rae, 2010; Sewell & Pool, 2010).

Social entrepreneurship: It is an entrepreneurial process with the primary goal of

impacting social change and welfare of society. The scope of entrepreneurship has been

expanded to include innovative solutions to social problems to create social good and

reinvest capital and institutional resources in the community welfare (Mars & Rhoades,

2012; Rae, 2010).

Significance

In this project study I explored entrepreneurship learning and its impact on

professional achievement for undergraduate students at UIC and captured the

perspectives of the participants regarding entrepreneurship learning. As implied by Stake

(as cited by Merriam, 2009) the knowledge learned from the study of a bounded system is

concrete and contextual. Therefore the exploration of entrepreneurship learning from the

perspectives of the participants at UIC contributed to the construction of a knowledge

that was rooted in the unique context of UIC and informed by the readers’ interpretation.

Academic leaders should develop an academic entrepreneurial mindset that would yield a

multidimensional value for the university, the faculty, the student, and the community.

Therefore, the university could focus leadership and resources on programs and academic

services that would ensure its institutional efficacy following the guidance of Dickson

(2010). The faculty could gain expertise by conducting research and working in closer

collaboration with the professional and the service sectors. Students should possess

ownership of key professional competencies to become social agents in their respective

 14
environments (Gutierrez & Guerrero, 2012; Mars & Ginter, 2012; Mars & Rhoades,

2012). The community could enhance the quality of living of its people through

employment, venture creation, and social change (Mars & Rhoades, 2012; Rae, 2010).

Guiding/Research Question

The project study explored the process of entrepreneurship learning for

undergraduate students at UIC. The study answered the following overarching question

within the context of a Moroccan University as detailed by Mars and Aguilar (2010):

What role, if any, does the process of entrepreneurship learning play in boosting

professional achievement for undergraduate students at a university setting? The

following subquestions were formulated to address the phenomenon:

1. How could professional achievement be described from an entrepreneurial

perspective?

2. What are the challenges facing academic leaders’ attempts to implement

entrepreneurship learning in Moroccan context?

3. How could the institutional and organizational levels of the university support

entrepreneurship learning and outcomes completion?

While research and the culture of entrepreneurship have been remarkably

evolving in the United States, China, and India, very little, if any, research has added to

the entrepreneurship knowledge in Morocco. The constituents of the Moroccan

community, including students, faculty, and business leaders have increased their

awareness about the lack of entrepreneurship learning in educational settings. Academic

 15
leaders should be held accountable for bringing innovative and comprehensive answers to

how universities should resolve the problem from a practical perspective.

Review of the Literature

Conceptual Framework

Barr and Tagg’s (1995) learning paradigm theory and Argyris’s (1991) learning

organization theory and collaboration principles as well as the experiential framework

provided a theoretical perspective through which to understand entrepreneurship learning

and its impact on students’ professional achievement and institutional effectiveness. The

learning paradigm assumes that the students’ achievement should be the focus of any

learning strategy implemented on university settings. Therefore, the learning centered

principles encompass deep learning approaches, including entrepreneurship learning,

project-based learning, and collaborative learning. The organizational learning and

collaboration principles will address issues related to institutional transformative change

and interdisciplinary and faculty collaboration. The learning centered paradigm and the

experiential learning theory are the foundations for effective entrepreneurship learning

(Botha, 2010; Harkema & Schout, 2008; Moalosi, Molokwane, & Mothibedi, 2012). In

their study, Harkema and Schout (2008) explored the role of entrepreneurship learning

through the implementation of a student centered approach in Hague University in

developing students’ entrepreneurial mindset.

Scholars have studied entrepreneurship from different conceptual frameworks

(Bagheri & Pihie 2011; Harkema & Schout, 2008; Komulainen, Naskali, Korhonen &

Foley, 2011; Mars & Aguilar, 2010; Mars & Ginter, 2012; Nejad, Abbaszadeh , Hassani
 16
& Bernousi, 2012). Mars and Aguilar’s (2010) study of the entrepreneurship scholarship

content that was published in five prestigious international journals of education revealed

notable patterns in the application of theoretical and conceptual trends to

entrepreneurship in higher education as well as relevant distinction in how

entrepreneurship models are applied according to specific organizations and regions. The

authors argued that research had substantively covered entrepreneurship from a neoliberal

market-oriented perspective, failing to grasp other nonbusiness related phenomena

including student and faculty activism, delivery methods, curriculum design, and social

works. Some scholars urged for a rethinking of entrepreneurship learning. Rae (2010)

argued that the international and economic crisis of 2008 contributed to a reconsideration

of the scope of entrepreneurship learning and its major implications on learning. Rae

(2010) stated that the American neoliberal principles that inform the entrepreneurial

process have been questioned in the light of the international crisis.

Entrepreneurship and Learning Paradigms

Scholars argued that knowing about entrepreneurship behavior relates to the

theory of learning applied to entrepreneurship (Harkema & Schout, 2008; Krueger, 2007;

Liebenberg & Mathews, 2010; Rae & Carswell, 2000; Schilling & Klamma, 2010).

Krueger (2007) stated that constructivism and developmental psychology are the

appropriate conceptual frameworks for providing the deep mental models responsible for

the activation of entrepreneurship behaviors. Krueger (2007) argued that behind

entrepreneurial actions lie deep beliefs that are anchored in mental cognitive models.

Constructivist methods to entrepreneurship learning tend to be learning-centered, and

 17
cognitive psychology has shown the best way of learning is by trial and error in

contextual situations. Therefore, instructors are invited to use learning methods that

manipulate knowledge structure not only knowledge content if they want to change deep

mental models of students, which will have implication on instruction and assessment

methods. Continuous reflection about how people learn is a key element in the process of

effective learning. Argyris (1991) argued that the double-loop learning approach enables

learners to reflect on their learning impacting their deep mental structures as “effective…

learning is not simply a function of how people feel. It is a reflection of how they think,

that is, the cognitive rules of reasoning they use to design and implement their actions”

(p. 100).

Scholars have recognized the experiential framework to be fruitful to

entrepreneurship learning (Krueger, 2010; Rae & Carswell, 2000). According to Kold

(1984) learning is a process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of

experience. From an experiential perspective, learning is a continuous process that adapts

to the learners’ social and psychological context producing new ideas or what Kolb called

the future of learning. Therefore experiential learning could lead to students being trained

to be proactive and adaptive to uncertain professional and economic environments and

innovators who create jobs and social value in their respective environments. However,

some scholars believe that people do not inevitably change their behavior from

experience (Rae, 2010). Experiential behavior encompasses more than the enterprise

theoretical knowledge because changing behavior involves learners in a continuous

process of doing, understanding, and sensing their actions (Rae & Carswell, 2000).
 18
Scholars have associated entrepreneurship with the learning-centered framework

(Harkema & Schout, 2008). The authors advocated for a learner-centered approach to

enable learners to construct meaning as a reaction to different experimented learning

situations. The authors stated that the implication of faculty and academic leadership is a

prerequisite to the program implemented in Hague University where the experiment has

been endeavored. To afford cross campus adherence to the program, structures were

established to support and champion the endeavor. So, the Centre of Excellence for

Innovation and Entrepreneurship was founded to shepherd the institutional efforts and

sensitize the learners and faculty to entrepreneurship activities. The concept of learning-

centered college goes back to 1995 when Robert Barr and John Tagg co-authored their

article entitled “From teaching to learning – A New Paradigm for Undergraduate

Education.” Barr and Tagg (1995) stated that learning colleges should engage into a

systemic transformative change to “create environments and experiences that bring

students to discover and construct knowledge for themselves, to make students members

of communities of learners …” (p. 15). Grounded into constructivist theory, the learning

paradigm focused on deep learning and the learning outcomes became the driver to

efforts and resources deployment at academic institutions (Fear et al., 2003; O’Banion &

Wilson, 2010). Learning initiatives including project-based learning, collaborative

learning, active learning, and entrepreneurship learning are recognized to fall within the

learning paradigm framework (O’Banion & Wilson, 2010). O’Banion (2000) outlined 14

recommendations to the college in its journey towards the learning-centered institution.

They range from overhauling mission statements, engaging stakeholders, and recruiting
 19
staff and faculty to creating an adequate environment for learning. Students’ professional

achievement should be the institutional learning outcome requiring alignment of

resources and collaboration among the constituents of academic institutions.

Entrepreneurship activities will be the process that will activate the deep learning

achievement that will shape the student’s learning experience.

The learning paradigm college defines learning as a product of institutional

strategic agenda involving the entire constituents including students, academic leaders,

and other stakeholders. In this respect, O’Banion (2000) stated that “careful attention

must be paid to language, communication, structures, recognition and rewards, traditional

values and historic successes, substantive issues, individual and group roles, resources,

barriers – all the elements of institutional culture that can support and inhibit change and

experimentation” (p. 23). Bosch et al. (2008) interviewed more than 200 individuals who

included students, academic leaders, and faculty members to understand their perception

of the goals of a learning centered institution. Bosch et al. (2005) revealed that

participants believed that a learning centered institution promoted collaboration among

students, faculty, and administration conducive to a collective ownership of learning

where all participants contribute to activate a learning environment. The respondents also

believed that this collective ownership of learning was achieved through constructive

methods that included creativity, problem-solving, and reflection that are activated in

class and outside the wall of their institutions. Therefore, entrepreneurial professional

achievement will not be created exclusively in the classroom, but may be the outcome of

the overall institutional environment.

 20
Entrepreneurship and Professional Achievement

Research and the use of entrepreneurship learning in African countries in general

and Morocco in particular are limited (Botha, 2010; Boussetta, 2003; Eze & Nwali, 2012;

Kouba & Sahibeddine, 2012). Kouba and Sahibeddine (2012) explored Moroccan student

intention about creating a new business. However, entrepreneurship is not about

intentions, but behaviors and achievements (Fargion et al., 2012). When faculty used

lecture and content based methods in delivery of courses, which is the case in most

African countries including Morocco, effectiveness in teaching entrepreneurship

behaviors to students has been compromised.

Academic leaders in African countries facing unemployment and social

challenges should assume full responsibility to shape an innovative learning framework

that might be placed into the learning centered paradigm and empower individuals and

groups to bring in positive change in their respective communities. Individuals are facing

complex challenges, urging them to take innovative initiatives.

Gutiérrez and Guerrero (2012) defined entrepreneurship as a professional

achievement that promotes autonomy and personal initiative. This definition went beyond

the reduced business and economic view of entrepreneurship, asking for supportive

pedagogical approaches. The researchers grounded the competences of autonomy and

personal initiative in the European Qualification Framework for Lifelong Learning (EQF)

that defined competence as a set of knowledge, skills, and energy that qualified the

individual to transform the environmental constraints to real opportunities for positive

change. The researchers argued that entrepreneurship spirit and the competence in
 21
autonomy and personal responsibility are concepts recognized as synonyms (Gutierrez &

Guerrero, 2012).

In their study, Bagheri and Pihie (2011) contributed to the establishment of a

conceptual framework to understand entrepreneurial competencies in the context of

university setting and suggested an integrated experiential entrepreneurship model

focused on the dynamic role the student could play in constructing entrepreneurial

leadership. The authors elaborated a dynamic and a multi-level process of

entrepreneurship learning development that enabled learners to attain entrepreneurship

leadership and develop key individual and team competencies. According to this model,

the learner took ownership over his learning process through experience, observation,

social interaction, and reflection (Bagheri & Pihie, 2011). Therefore, entrepreneurship

leadership could be considered as a form of professional achievement.

Terminological issues arise related to the interchangeable use of the terms

employability, enterprise, and entrepreneurship (Sewell & Pool, 2010). Professional

achievement could be defined as a set of skills, knowledge, understanding, working

behaviors and personal attributes that qualify an individual to be employed or exploit new

business or social opportunities in which he could be successful and energized (Eickoff,

2008; Rae, 2010; Sewell & Pool, 2010). Sewell and Pool (2010) distinguished between

the terms enterprise education and entrepreneurship education. While the first term

relates to generic skills such as leadership, initiative, creativity, and problem solving used

to manage resources effectively; entrepreneurship is associated with skills of risk-taking

and innovation leading to create new resources and social wealth. However, since
 22
enterprise skills are rooted in entrepreneurship (Rae, 2010), both typologies of skills are

valuable for students, whether they plan for employment or self-employment. Therefore,

professional achievement will encompass the learners’ employment and self-employment

capabilities.

Guven (2013) conducted research to determine the student educational needs for

entrepreneurship. Guven stated that the educational needs for entrepreneurship expressed

by students fit into two categories - personal development and professional development.

The entrepreneurship attributes that students should have included “self-

management…creative and critical thinking, leadership, participating in teamwork,

persuading others, planning, developing goals, taking risk, taking responsibility, and

passing it to others when required…[and] being willing to get to know about business

environments or knowing them” (Guven, 2013, p. 379). The aim of entrepreneurship

education is to facilitate learning for individuals to acquire entrepreneurship attributes.

Wilson, as cited in Guven (2013), stated that entrepreneurship education

contributed to individuals’ experiential learning, skill gaining, and above all, to their

mentality change. Schloars revealed that students needed to express themselves better,

improve capacity of persuasion and communication skills, and be open-minded to

innovation in order to ensure their personal development (Guven, 2013; Mayhew,

Simonoff, Baumol, Wiesenfelf, & Klein, 2011). Guven argued that professional

development students need to know about businesses and sectors, job research

techniques, and how to build required infrastructure for a work place. However, the

author did not point to how entrepreneurship attributes could be effectively achieved.
 23
Guven’s recommendation to use seminars and conferences as instructional tools for

developing personal and professional entrepreneurship attributes do not provide an

experiential learning environment required in entrepreneurship education.

Scholars challenged the neoliberal framework that generated the entrepreneurship

education literature. Komulainen et al. (2011) studied the challenges and tensions that

have faced the implementation of entrepreneurship learning in Finnish school. Teachers,

recognized as the main acting constituent in the system, rejected the hard and commercial

dimensions of entrepreneurship education, belonging to the neoliberal paradigm of

research. Teachers thought that the neoliberal perspective of education could jeopardize

the universal and community virtues of service. However, the authors believed that the

neoliberal thinking could be applicable if entrepreneurship learning outcomes were

focused within the educational institution and reflective of the students and teachers’

agencies.

Internal entrepreneurship challenged students’ achievement that relies exclusively

on academic credentials; instead, internal entrepreneurship reflected the students’ ability

to become employable. Professional achievement required having extracurricular talents

including behavioral skills, creativity, collaboration, and competitiveness. Therefore, the

authors recognized the neoliberal basis of internal entrepreneurship as a new educational

ideology and asked academic leaders of Finnish schools to train their teachers to accept

this paradigm (Komulainen et al., 2011).

External entrepreneurship could also shape activities or projects used to solve

community and social problems. Fargion, Gevorgianiene, and Lievens (2011) studied the
 24
impact of an intensive course entitled Innovation, New Ventures, and Entrepreneurship in

Social Teaching (INVEST) within the frame of a partnership between Vilnius University

and Kempen University located in Lithuania and Belgium respectively. Fargion et al.

(2012) focused on the active role of INVEST in promoting the entrepreneurial mindset

among the students that intended to “develop skills in identifying opportunities, creative

thinking, organizational and networking competencies, as well as a focus on skills in

finding and using resources at all levels” (p. 971). Therefore, there is room to think about

a comprehensive framework that might link the market and nonmarket oriented

entrepreneurial activities. This comprehensive framework may shape the learning

initiatives in congruence with the entrepreneurial learning outcomes that might be

expressed within and off-campus.

Social and Ethical Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship has been extended to embrace socially oriented activities (Mars

& Rhoades, 2012). The cases studied by the authors illuminated an organizational space

that occurs at the intersection of the academic capitalism and public good. Students

demonstrated entrepreneurial agency by using entrepreneurship resources available

within the college to pursue their social ventures. Scholars argued that this kind of

entrepreneurship agency could replace conventional methods of change including

activism and resistance and contribute to bridge the gap between capitalism expressed by

the neoliberal philosophy and citizenship (Jones & Irelade, 2010; Mars & Rhoades,

2012).
 25
Some scholars will oppose the drift of schools to diversify their fund raising

resources. They might be afraid that universities lose the initial public purpose they were

established, which is providing education for communities (Mars & Metcalfe, 2009). The

alternative would be to understand entrepreneurship not only in economic but in social

value. Mars and Metcalfe (2009) reported that the Association of University Technology

Managers had published its annual Better World report which enlightened cases of

research commercialization that contributed to solve social problems namely in public

health and health care. Mars and Ginter (2012) showcased the endeavors of some

community colleges to respond to market demands and to enhance the economic

environment of the community, which is “is a direct reflection of the service mission of

the community college” (p. 76). In fact, entrepreneurial reactions to external tensions rely

on academic capitalism as a founding theoretical framework (Slaughter & Leslie, 1997;

Slaughter & Rhoades as cited in Mars & Ginter, 2012).

Research was conducted on the college context to examine the way community

colleges adapt their organizational behavior to the external pressures. One way is to work

out curricula for entrepreneurship education which are explored under the four theoretical

constructs developed by Slaughter and Rhoades (as cited in Mars & Ginter, 2012), which

“are (a) interstitial organizations, (b) intermediating organizations, (c) new circuits of

knowledge, and, (d) enhanced managerial capacities” (p. 79). Mars and Ginter (2012)

contributed to understand the process underlying the entrepreneurship education in

college communities and its respective organizational patterns. At the level of the

enhanced managerial capacities, Mars and Ginter insisted on the role of the Community
 26
College Entrepreneurship Education Units (CCEEUs) to ensure professional linkage to

the surrounding professional environment.

One important finding of the research is that CCEEUs are shown to be interstitial

organizations that serve to bridge the gap between colleges and the marketplace. As a

variety of CCEEUs, business incubators are commonly used to help students, or faculty

develop a business idea without conventional constraints related to resources or

investments. Thus, the physical positioning of these incubators inside CCEEUs

contributed to align the entrepreneurship education initiative to the mission of the college

community (Mars & Ginter, 2012). Innovation is the major characteristic of an

incubator’s work. As such, incubators would be qualified to be social entrepreneurs that

employ innovative strategies “that if successful lead to sustainable and scalable social

transformation” (Mars & Metcalfe, 2009, p. 58).

The social value behind this kind of academic entrepreneurship consists in the

establishment of channels of communication and exchange of ideas between the market

and the community college. Similarly, the creation of innovative start-ups will contribute

to job creation and socioeconomic development of the community (Mars & Metcalfe,

2009). Social entrepreneurship has been recognized to develop rapidly, attracting young

people to adopt it as an alternative economic entrepreneurship scope. This was the reason

for which Rae (2010) considered social entrepreneurship as an integral part of the

entrepreneurship phenomena.
 27
Entrepreneurship and Learning

There is an association between entrepreneurship learning and professional

achievement in which learning is an experiential process, which activates entrepreneurial

behavior (Ehiyazaryan & Barraclough, 2009; Rae & Carswell, 2000). Unlike traditional

learning methods that often result in declarative knowledge acquired through

transmission (Schilling & Klamma, 2010; Walsh, 2007), entrepreneurship learning is

concerned with learners constructing, understanding, and sensing their knowledge.

Research documented the failure of linear instructional methods that focused on tangible

and assessable assignments including business plans and functional knowledge to

develop opportunity-oriented entrepreneurial mindsets among students (Rae, 2010;

Sardeshmukh & Nelson, 2011).

The learning model presented by Sardeshmukh and Nelson, (2011) was not

limited to business creation but encompasses self-managed and opportunity driven

approaches to careers including the social sector. The authors focused on the

development of the learner’s personality because “…incorporation of experiential

exercise and internships in tertiary education has several benefits in terms of the broader

career context, including development of social networks and mentoring relationships

that can be leveraged in a student’s career development” (p. 52). The research conducted

by Boussetta (2012) and Ayegou et al. (2013) revealed that assessable and programmed

knowledge delivered to students did not transform them to self-entrepreneurs but

facilitated their employment. Therefore, the learning tools were not congruent to

entrepreneurship education that is activated beyond the formal classroom environment

 28
through experiential and discovery learning, which challenges orthodox pedagogies (Rae,

2010). Mayhew et al. (2011) revealed that innovative assessment methods to learning

contributed to ensure students’ capabilities to innovate regardless of relevant covariates

such as college major or grade point average.

Harkema and Schout (2008) associated the learners’ achievement with their

ability to innovate and opportunism to become external entrepreneurs or internal

entrepreneurs; specifically, Harkema and Schout recognized as an innovation manager in

an existing firm. The authors also argued that the prevailing instruction-based approach

to learning impeded entrepreneurship learning. Instead they advocated for a learner-

centered approach to enable learners constructing meaning in their reaction to different

experimented learning situations (Harkema & Schout, 2008). Either behaving from

within an organization as an internal entrepreneur or from outside as an external

entrepreneur, the learner has been learning effectively to attain professional achievement.

In developing countries like Morocco, enterprise education for employment could

serve for the learner as an immersion in business and social context before moving

forward to self-employment (Ayegou et al., 2013; Boussetta, 2003; Rae, 2007). Rae

(2007) outlined a set of practical pedagogical instruments to assess entrepreneurship

learning yielding to professional achievement. He suggested, among others, external or

work based projects, problem-based learning, discovery visits to firms and external

organizations, guest speakers and real case studies, and simulation based learning.

External based activities are the key experiential process for personal and professional

development. Rae (2007) suggested the following off-campus activities:

 29
 Internships

 Part-time or vacation work

 Self-employment or freelancing

 Community or service learning activity

 Active role in extracurricular organizations of sports

The activity of undergraduate research about business and sectors, which was

recommended by Guven (2013), can be added to this list.

Botha (2010) studied the impact of project-based learning approach on students’

entrepreneurial achievement. The author revealed that project-based learning applied to

entrepreneurship proved effective because it enabled students to develop entrepreneurial

skills they would never have achieved if taught in a conventional teaching way. The

delivery mode underlying this innovative approach as well as the proposed assessment

methodology contributed to the optimization of the use of available resources in terms of

faculty’s engagement and workloads, and as such efficiency attainment. Skills included

the following: presentation and communication skills, entrepreneurial application,

teamwork, knowledge of entrepreneurial skills, creativity and innovation, and preparation

for tests and examination as detailed by Botha (2010).

Moalosi, Molokwane, and Mothibedi (2012) conducted a case study at the

University of Botswana involving design students to assess students’ professional

achievement after designing packaging strategies for a small entrepreneur producing

frozen vegetables. The authors revealed that the application of the project-based learning

promoted graduates’ professional achievement and engagement as measured by their

 30
entrepreneurship spirit, social responsibility, teamwork, and innovative thinking. Moalosi

et al. (2012) stated that moving toward an effective learning of entrepreneurship might be

triggered by a shift from teacher-based to learner based methods. Zimmerman (2012)

argued that the use of business plans for teaching entrepreneurship was effective.

However, he suggested that business plans methods had to provide an interdisciplinary

background offering integration among the business functions that covered the

curriculum.

The majority of universities in Africa, including Morocco, South Africa,

Botswana, and Asian countries have succeed in offering theoretical knowledge about

entrepreneurship, but fail to engage students in real life and experiential learning process

through practical activities realized within and off campus (Botha, 2010; Kouba &

Sahibeddine, 2012; Moalosi et al., 2012; Parry & Baird, 2012).

Scholars stated that the implication of faculty members is a prerequisite to the

success of the implementation of entrepreneurship learning (Fargion et al., 2011;

Herkema & Schout, 2008; Komulainen et al., 2011; Nejad et al., 2012). Nejad et al.

(2012) drew on Senge’s five dimensions of the learning organization that follow:

personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, team learning, and system learning to

establish the relationship between the learning organization capacities and the

professional achievement of faculty members in Iranian universities. From an

organizational perspective, universities might reinforce their reactive and proactive

capabilities by engaging into entrepreneurship activities that might further facilitate the

application of learning organization’s five elements. Faculty members challenged the

 31
implementation entrepreneurship learning initiatives on campus because either they

rejected the individualistic and business identities of the neoliberal theory (Komulainen et

al., 2012) or they found their competency being challenged as facilitators (Fargion et al.,

2012). Therefore, in order to afford cross campus adherence to the program, structures,

partnerships, and networking facilities might be established to support and champion the

change process toward an entrepreneurial oriented learning realities (Fargion et al., 2012;

Harkema & Schout, 2008; Mars & Ginter, 2012).

The literature reviewed in this section has processed entrepreneurial learning on

the basis of short courses, intensive programs, or vocational initiatives. Researchers in

this review have presented entrepreneurship learning according to different conceptual

frameworks, including neoliberal theory, social constructivism, experiential learning, and

learner-centered paradigms. However, all agree on the necessity to ensure

contextualization and congruence between active learning environments and graduates’

competencies attainment (Mars & Aguilar, 2010). This congruence has been lacking in

the different contexts where the reviewed studies have been conducted, including

Moroccan universities. Therefore, academic leaders might think about an inclusive and

cohesive framework of entrepreneurship learning that covers a 3 years bachelor’s

program with implications on curriculum design, collaboration, students’ retention, and

student’s professional achievement.

The best way for universities to bring evidence that their students are learning is

to design a new learning environment that puts them on the road to professional

achievement. The university will then gain ownership of the process and take full
 32
responsibility for learning (Bosch et al., 2008). Current organizations demand innovative

workers who are highly qualified in communication, problem-solving, and knowledge

integration. Like with other developing countries, job and public wealth creation are

conditioned by a permanent entrepreneurial effort of the society’s constituencies,

including graduates from colleges and universities. To ensure strong motivation,

successful learners should use a combination of self-directed method in choosing

appropriate business ideas and a team-based collaborative approach in implementing and

sharing research findings among peers. The shift to the learning paradigm is reinforced

with the new facilitating role played by the instructor who becomes an instrument of

learning (Hubbard, 2012; Monaghan, 2011).

Monaghan, (2011) initially investigated the applicability of communities of

practice in graduate level management class over five years and eight academic

semesters, starting in 2005 and finishing by 2010. In addition, the author also evaluated

the outcomes of this learning strategy and its impact on professional achievement of

learners. In 2009, extra data provided by 17 reflection papers and 20 course evaluation

interpretations added the following evidence of deep learning outcomes of this learning

experience: (a) improvement of student learning; (b) real life connection of communities

of practices; (c) development of crucial thinking; and, (d) quality of student work. The

following four sequential instructional stages were used by Monaghan (2011) to

incorporate communities of practice as a deep learning strategy:

1. Formation,

2. Implementation,
 33
3. Reflection,

4. Sharing.

The formation stage consists of introducing students to the learning strategy of

entrepreneurship learning. An example of an assignment is one where students meet each

other to get acquainted and identify the topics of interest to them according to their

professional projections and career inspirations, which will fit in their learning plan. The

implementation assignment aims at ensuring that all students are engaged through active

contribution. Each team is asked to prepare and facilitate a learning session for their

class. While students vary their learning methods, they should use active learning

methods like video sessions or interviews to motivate their classmates. The reflection

assignment stage incites students to write reflective papers where they synthesize their

learning experience and how it correlates to their domain of project research. The sharing

assignment is a learning environment where a community of future entrepreneurs shares

their knowledge findings with the large class community. The learning environments

created into and beyond class walls simulate to a great extent the real life professional

experience that foster horizontal career development and collaborative learning

(Monaghan, 2011).

The role of the instructor is to facilitate learning by creating appropriate

pedagogical environments that foster deep and participative learning. The focus is more

on the process rather than on the content of learning. The students themselves choose the

projects’ topics related to business environment, activate the process of animation, and

share knowledge through oral presentations. The professional identity thus created will
 34
increase the motivation of student inciting them to learn and develop their professional

skills (Hubbard, 2012; Monaghan, 2011).

Implications

The findings of the data may make the university leaders aware of their

announced mission and how they align resources to achieve students’ professional

achievement and institutional effectiveness. Therefore, any interdisciplinary

collaboration, if correctly facilitated, will yield a comprehensive curriculum likely to

engage students into the following creating three types of value that entrepreneurship

learning encompasses: wealth creation value, social value, and personal value. The final

project has the following three main implications:

1. As a newly launched university, UIC will learn to align its resources and

spending with the learning strategies likely to contribute to the student’s

professional achievement and his integration into the social and economic

environment. Institutional effectiveness would be achieved through successful

strategic planning and better connection with the external socioeconomic

Moroccan environment.

2. The newly established curriculum and any other new organizational structures

will provide a seamless learning environment for the three years of the

bachelor’s degree, which could be applicable not only to business programs

but to other programs including, engineering, and health sciences. The

curriculum will process the entrepreneurship learning for students to bring in

positive change in society.

 35
3. As a Laureate network member, UIC could contribute to inform the Laureate

global networks project’s database and teach entrepreneurial individuals

initiatives likely to inject energy for collaboration around global projects

shepherd on the Laureate global network and bring in social positive change

worldwide.

Summary

In the context of environmental change, uncertainty, and economic crisis

universities and colleges in Morocco should be engaged to resolve the issue of

unemployment and wealth creation in the community. Entrepreneurial oriented

professional achievement should be the learning outcome that academic leaders would

brand into their respective mission statements, with the concept of professional

achievement encompassing entrepreneurial attributes that includes, employability,

innovation, problem-solving, risk-taking, self-employability, and social responsibility.

The traditional identity of universities as academic institutions has been dominating the

linear modes of achievements that include GPA and grades with little impact on

employment or new ventures creation.

Entrepreneurship literature has evolved through stages stretching from

neoliberalism, entrepreneurship, to socially oriented entrepreneurship. The constructivist

theory and the learning-centered approach will help academic leaders design learning

strategies that will transform the deep cognitive structure of the learner and that focus on

the process of learning instead of knowledge content enabling learners to develop

 36
entrepreneurial attitudes. Equipped with these attitudes, learners will be professionally

achievable to be hired by firms or launch their own social or business venture.

While employment achievement requires more academic control using linear

assessment methods that includes business plans and essays, self-employment

achievement will be activated using innovative initiatives including work-based activity,

project-based learning, community-based learning, and simulation activities. The

remaining sections are devoted to the research design, the methodological tools that will

be used for data collection and analysis, the ethical issues ensuring the trustworthiness of

the data and the protection of the participants from risk or harm, the project, and

concluding reflections.
 37
Section 2: The Methodology

Introduction: Research Design and Approach

Researchers choose among the following three research designs: quantitative,

qualitative, and mixed methods designs to evaluate the weaknesses and strengths of

educational practices. The choice among these methods was dictated by the philosophical

background of the researcher, the complexity of the problem, and the types of research

questions. A constructivist background informed the qualitative research of the study.

Because interpretive or qualitative research assumed that the reality of learning at the

university setting is socially constructed, I constructed knowledge through the process of

collecting and analyzing data following the direction of Merriam (2009).

I used a qualitative research methodology as described by Creswell (2012) to

discover and understand the process of entrepreneurship learning from the perspectives of

students, faculty members, and other main stakeholders. Through the research I explored

the process of entrepreneurship learning for undergraduate students at UIC. Having an

interest in improving the quality of students’ learning and the practice of teaching in class

led to choosing the qualitative approach. As a novice qualitative researcher, I was

interested in gaining insight into how students, faculty members, and other stakeholders

attribute value to professional achievement from an entrepreneurial perspective following

the direction on qualitative research provided by Merriam (2009) and Creswell (2012).

Quantitative design did not fit the objective of the study.

The objective of the study was not be to measure or test a theory about

entrepreneurship education; instead, because the main target of the research was to
 38
delineate the central phenomena of entrepreneurial oriented professional achievement at

university setting, the qualitative design was the most appropriate. Therefore, I

interviewed students, academic leaders, and stakeholders to delineate the process of

learning in the UIC setting. Consequently, I processed research inductively in order to

combine data collected and analyzed from interviews and documents in order to build a

general understanding about the central phenomena of entrepreneurship learning at UIC.

The findings of the study informed knowledge that included themes, categories, and

theories about an educational practice as implied by Merriam (2009). The study was

directed by the theoretical framework that included entrepreneurship learning, which

enabled me to narrow the research and interpret the data following the direction of

Merriam (2009).

The approach that was used for the study is the case study approach that provided

an in-depth exploration of a bounded system referring to the teaching practices used by

UIC following the direction of Bogdan and Biklen (2007). The qualitative case study

aligned with the constructivist framework of the study because participants’ experiences

were explored within the bounded system of UIC as implied by Darke, Sharke, and

Broadent (1998). I used the case study method because the major data gathering

technique was interviews with students, faculty, and stakeholders supplemented with

document review.

Because the context of UIC is unique, and the informants’ perspectives could be

constructed through the ongoing research, I adopted an inductive process as described by

Bogdan and Biklen (2007) allowing collecting, analyzing data, and possibly the
 39
reshaping the research questions as the study evolved to the end, which was not required

in this study. As implied by Merriam (2009), the qualitative case study was instrumental

because the underlying objective of the study went beyond the dimension of the bounded

system at UIC to harvest insight from the perspective of participants about the process of

entrepreneurship learning and possibly improve educational practices at Moroccan

university settings in general. What was unique about case study research is its reliance

on questions and their relationship to the end product of the study as stated by Merriam

(2012). The qualitative research study resulted knowledge that Merriam (2009)

recognized as more concrete and more contextual. The resulting knowledge was more

concrete and more contextual because it provided real-life experiences that resonated

with the readers’ mode of life and as rooted in the Moroccan sociocultural context.

Participants

Procedures

As a qualitative case study research design, the study included interviews of key

informants to explore the impact of entrepreneurship learning on students’ professional

achievement. Key informants were students, academic leaders, and stakeholders who

were chosen on the basis of the criterion oriented purposive strategy (Lodico, Spaulding,

& Voegtle, 2010; Merriam, 2009). I selected those students who pursued their first year’s

Master’s degree at UIC through the business administration department and who had

completed undergraduate studies at the university. The reason for this criterion was to

ensure that every student had experienced various instructional strategies during

undergraduate stage and passed to the graduate level. The students were selected from the
 40
various graduate majors of the business department that included entrepreneurship and

administration, accountancy and budgeting, and buying and logistics. Selecting students

from different majors of the business department ensured a diversification of experiences

and opinions about instructional strategies used at UIC. The diversification of students’

experiences could contribute the transferability of resulting knowledge to other students

in other majors and other university settings.

By combining purposeful samples, in the study I triangulated multiple

perspectives of participants including participants outside the program, which enhanced

the quality and credibility of the study as described by Patton (1999). Participants also

included heads of academic units and main stakeholders representing the business and

community professions. Snowball sampling was the form of purposeful sampling

technique that was used for collecting data. The sample of students totaled six persons. I

assured confidentiality of participants because individuals were not identified following

the direction of Creswell (2012). The same technique was adopted to select a sample of

two academic leaders and three stakeholders representing the professional sector. The

two academic leaders were selected on the basis of their experiences with educational

strategies and their initiatives to implement entrepreneurial learning at UIC. The three

stakeholders were chosen using the criterion of professional representativeness and

personal interest in the promotion of entrepreneurship learning.

The criterion for selecting participants might have represented some limitations to

the study. The fact of choosing students who succeeded in their journey to complete their

degree might have responded on the basis of their perseverance and personal efforts and
 41
avoided reflecting on the learning situations at UIC. However, the questions that were

asked guided the participants to share their experiences and feelings about

entrepreneurship learning at UIC.

Ethical Issues

To begin the research, I sought permission from the academic authorities at UIC,

including the president and the dean of the business administration department. To

comply with ethical codes of research, I did not start collecting data until permission had

been granted from the college institutional review board (IRB) following the suggestions

of Lodico, Spaulding, and Voegtle (2010). The Institutional Review Board (IRB) is

responsible for ensuring that all Walden University research complies with the

university's ethical standards as well as U.S. federal regulations. IRB approval is required

before collection of any data. IRBs made sure that participants in the study were

protected against any possible harm and that confidentiality of their experiences had been

protected. So the Walden University’s approval number for this study was 02-13-15-

0317982 and it should expire on February 12, 2016.

I sent an e-mail to informants inviting them to participate in the inquiry. The

invitation described that participation was voluntary and participants could withdraw at

any stage from the research process. Participants in the study signed voluntarily the

informed consent that was assimilated to the disclosure of the research protocol to the

participants, which meant that “Participants have been given information about

procedures and risks involved in the study and have been informed that their participation

is voluntary, and they have the right to withdraw from the study without repercussions”
 42
(Lodico et al., 2010, p. 147). Participants returned the consent documents by e-mail. The

e-mail addresses on the documents were associated with the formal signature of

participants. Students received permission from the provost of UIC. Confidentiality of

data was assured by de-identification either through coding or anomyzing following the

direction of Creswell (2012); and so, the participants were protected from any risk of

harm in case they report any negative feedback about instructional learning in class.

Therefore, participants were be identified by letters A, B, C, and etc.

Data Collection Process

Process Detail

In qualitative research, the participant’s perspective is at stake. In this study, I

combined multiple sources of data and views that were collected from students, academic

leaders, and stakeholders about their experiences with the central phenomena of

entrepreneurship learning at university setting. The data collection process relied on

transcribing participants’ direct quotations about their interpretation of learning that were

derived from audio recorded interviews. I chose the one-on-one interview type and

adopted new and high quality tapes and well-maintained recording equipment to get good

recording quality. The one-on-one interview was recognized by Merriam (2009) to be

“the most common of interview…in which one person elicits information from another”

(p. 88).

I also established an interview guide for each participant type (see Appendices A,

B, & C) that guided the interview process and enabled me to take notes, as stated by

Merriam (2009). The interview guide covered a list of open-ended questions to be asked
 43
to participants and that yielded descriptive data about entrepreneurship learning at the

study setting. The validity of the questions was tested by submitting them to the

appreciation of an expert in the field of entrepreneurial education, who refined the

wordings and suggested the inclusion of other questions in the interview guide. I

followed the advice of Merriam (2009) who stated, “…the fewer, more open-ended

[researchers’] questions are the better” (p. 104). Having prepared few questions for the

interview, I concentrated on listening to what the participants had to share, which in turn

yielded knowledge about the phenomena.

During the interview, probes in the form of “…who, what, when, and where

questions” were used for more clarification about the ideas and opinions revealed by the

participants (Merriam, 2009, p. 101). I took reflective field notes that might bring insight

into the phenomena through emerging themes and clues likely to contribute to an easy

interpretation and analysis of data following the direction of Creswell (2012). Because

the case study was context specific and was sensitive to linguistic differences, I

conducted the interviews in French, which is the second official and mostly used

language in Morocco. Each interview lasted approximately 45 minutes and was held in

March and April 2015. I was flexible as to the choice of the location where the

participant wanted to hold the interview. I used the interview protocol as a recording and

guiding procedure for collecting data that were kept securely in a locked filing cabinet

following the direction of Creswell (2012). I used the e-mail addresses on the consent

documents to gain access to participants by sending them an informative e-mail about the

interview asking for their feedback about their availability and location of their choice.
 44
The informative e-mail was followed up by a phone call with every participant to arrange

the meeting for the interview.

When interviewing the participants, I started by thanking them for having agreed

to participate in the inquiry, reminded them of the duration of the interview and their

possibility of withdrawal, introducing the main objective of the study, and promising to

provide them with a summary of the interview for review and corrections, if any, to

match the interpretations with their feelings and experiences following the direction of

Creswell (2012) and Merriam (2009). During the interview, I asked questions slowly,

keeping my voice steady and at a reasonable volume to the end of the questions, and used

clear diction in order to enable the participants to hear and understand all questions, as

suggested by Creswell (2012).

My role as the continuing education manager at UIC coupled with 20 years’

experience training undergraduates and graduates nationally and internationally

disconnected me from any academic supervising role on the students participating in the

interview, which enabled them to share their perspectives with freedom. There could

have been a risk of bias in data collection when interviewing business leaders whose

experiences and interpretations might have overlapped with the beliefs of the researcher

and ideas as a continuing education manager working in relation with the professional

sector. However, my role was to ask questions following a pre-established interview

protocol, and participants mainly informed knowledge through the data as implied by

Merriam (2009). The interviews were audiotaped to grasp the intended messages of the

participants. Directly after individual interviews were completed, I transcribed the audio
 45
recordings on my computer in a word document and kept the document safe in a

password secured file. I also kept the actual audio recording tapes in a locked cabinet.

I also analyzed documents following the recommendations of Merriam (2009).

Therefore, official documents of the schools were collected and analyzed including UIC’s

mission statement and accreditation applications. Accreditation applications are public

documents that the academic department at UIC submits each year to the Moroccan

ministry of higher education for program approval. The accreditation application

displayed the details of the courses and learning methods leading to graduation. I first

asked permission from the appropriate academic deans to use the documents and verified

them for accuracy and relevance in informing the research questions following the

direction of Bowen (2009) and Creswell (2012). Analysis of the documents helped reveal

how teaching was practiced in the unique context of UIC and how the teaching practices

impacted the experiences of students in class and their engagement with the curriculum.

Data also revealed participants’ insights about entrepreneurship learning, challenges, and

opportunities facing entrepreneurship learning implementation in the Moroccan academic

context.

The Role of the Researcher

I justified my research problem based on my professional experiences following

the direction of Creswell (2000; 2012) and Patton (1999). In this study, I provided

information about me as my perspective influenced the shaping of the inquiry. According

to Patton (1999), “…because the researcher is the instrument in qualitative inquiry, a

qualitative report must include information about the researcher” (p. 1198). Therefore, I
 46
used my 20 years’ experience training undergraduates and graduate students and

collaborating internationally on implementing innovative learning approaches to inform

the research question of the study.

My professional experience provided me with the evidence that the students

exposed to innovative educational practices that include undergraduate research, business

plan capstones, and service learning have been engaged and attained professional

achievement. During the study, I took the opportunity to become the human instrument

who collected and interpreted data at the university setting. Interviews with the

participants informed the research process and provided knowledge about the learning

strategies that improved learning and students’ professional achievement at universities.

Extraction of meaning from interviews was not limited only to the text analysis.

I also extended my understanding of the phenomena under study by interpreting

nonverbal behaviors, asking participants probing questions, and conducting participant

member-checking on my interpretations of the data following the direction of Merriam

(2009). However, my subjectivity as researcher could have compromised the reliability of

the research. This was not a reason for not conducting qualitative research. Subjectivity is

an inherent characteristic of qualitative research. Instead of eliminating biases that could

be triggered by qualitative case study, I identified and monitored them as to how they

could shape the data analysis process following the direction of Merriam (2009).

At UIC, I did not hold a formal supervising role at the undergraduate or

postgraduate levels and worked as the continuing education manager, which enabled me

to conduct research with neutrality. My reflexivity and long experience in the field of
 47
education with undergraduate and graduate students and exposure to how they have been

transformed to be professionally achievable ensured validity to the inquiry following the

direction of Creswell and Miller (2000) and Patton (1999), offering the reader the

possibility to understand my position.

Data Analysis, Validity, and Credibility

Data analysis was the activity that yielded to answering the research questions of

the study as stated by Merriam (2009). I proceeded through the following six steps

outlined by Creswell (2012) in analyzing qualitative data:

1. Preparing and organizing the data for analysis

2. Making initial sense of data through the process of coding it

3. Interpreting the code to develop a general thematic meaning of the data

4. Modeling the findings into narratives and visuals

5. Interpreting the findings of the results by adding the researcher perspective to

the meaning

6. Using strategies to reinforce the validity and accuracy of the study

After completing my first interview with a participant, I started the process of

hand analyzing my qualitative data. I printed out the interview transcripts leaving 2-inch

margins on each side of the text documents to write down notes and transcribe the

participants’ mimics or gestural behavior following the direction of Creswell (2012).

While reading the text documents, I wrote reflective notes on the margins in order to gain

general impression of the data. Because analyzing qualitative data was not a linear

process (Creswell, 2012), I reread my text documents in order to find out what
 48
participants said that informed my research questions. To ensure that my own biases did

not influence the patterns of data, I used the strategy of member checks and sent the

summaries of my interpretation and notes to the participants for review following the

direction of Lodico et al. (2010). The process of analysis produced themes or categories

that, when apprehended comprehensively, contributed to understanding the participants’

perspectives about entrepreneurship learning and professional achievement.

The general intent of this rigorous data collection and data analysis process was to

develop an in-depth exploration of each student, academic leader, and stakeholder in the

context in which he or she worked (Creswell, Hanson, Plano, & Morales, 2007), make

inferences and models (Merriam, 2009), and identify behavioral patterns (Patton, 1999).

The end of the analysis process yielded a comprehensive interpretation of the knowledge

derived from the study. Therefore, I tried to connect the conceptual elements into a

meaningful model following the direction of Merriam (2009).

Trustworthiness of the data was assured by the processes of member checks and

triangulation through the diversification of the methods used for collecting data that

consisted of interviews and document review and following the direction on qualitative

research provided by Lodico et al. (2010) and Merriam (2009). This qualitative inquiry

strategy meant triangulating findings from analysis of document data with findings from

comparisons and contrasts of multiple participant perspectives (Patton, 1999), which

enabled identifying and coding discrepant cases in data. Discrepant or negative cases

challenged the interpretation of the data because they did not fall into the major patterns

that surface in the data analysis (Creswell, 2012; Patton, 1999). While failure of finding
 49
negative cases in data reinforced the general pattern of the data analysis, their presence in

the data could present new clues for new direction of the analysis and knowledge gains.

Creswell (2012) and Patton (1999) argued that the identification of discrepant cases or

contrary evidence allowed a comprehensive analysis of the data and demonstrate

intellectual integrity and ensure credibility to the findings of the research.

Accreditation applications constituted the documents likely to bring insights into

how academic services were delivered at the university. Bowen (2009) argued that

document analysis is used in qualitative research in combination with other sources of

data in order to support evidence for theme convergence or corroboration. By

triangulating data collected from at least two source methods included in this project

study, interviews and documents analysis, I corroborated findings across methods and

thus reduced the potential impact of biases that could exist in the project study as implied

by Bowen (2009). Accreditation applications provided the advantage of being in the

language of academic leaders, who helped in bringing answers to the research questions

of the study following the direction of Creswell (2012) and new data on the regulatory

context within which the participants operated (Bowen, 2009).

I started the process of document analysis through an iterative process of

superficial reading, intense reading, and interpretation of documents following the

direction of Bowen (2009). The documents were analyzed inductively allowing a

simultaneous coding of text and construction of categories and themes that captured

meaningful patterns into the documents’ content as detailed by Bowen (2009) and

Merriam (2009). I also paid attention to the frequency and number of times a phrase or
 50
linguistic pattern was used in the documents and evaluated their impact on the general

meaning of the data as recommended by Merriam (2009).

In this study, I triangulated multiple participants’ views, sources of data crossing

documents with interviews, and through transcripts review in order to ensure validity and

credibility of the study following the direction of Bowen (2009), Creswell et al. (2007),

and Patton (1999). One weakness of this project study was a limited level of

transferability because analysis concerned the bounded system of UIC. However, this

was not the goal of this project study. According to Merriam (2009), the knowledge that

was derived from the UIC case study was developed by reader interpretations, which led

to generalizations because of the overlapping of new data with old data. Academic

leaders of UIC could then use the knowledge derived from the project study to improve

entrepreneurial learning practices and enhance the students’ professional achievement.

Findings

Based on the research questions for this study, I conducted an insightful analysis

of the data and related the findings directly to the central phenomena of entrepreneurship

learning at university setting. I collected data relying on transcribing participants’

quotations about their interpretation of learning that were extracted from audio recorded

interviews. I chose the one-on-one interview type and adopted new and high quality tapes

to maintain a good recording quality. I printed out the interview transcripts leaving 2-inch

margins on each side of the text documents to write down my reflections, codes, and

emerging themes. I also wrote some notes during the interview sessions with every

participant on the printed interview guide following the direction of Creswell (2012).
 51
The analysis of data informed knowledge that included themes and conceptual

elements about educational practices of entrepreneurial learning at UIC. Those themes

were grounded in the theoretical framework that directed the study, which included

entrepreneurship learning, learning paradigm theory, and experiential learning. The in-

depth exploration of the participants’ experiences yielded three major themes and several

subthemes as represented in Table 1.

Table 1

Themes and Subthemes

Themes Subthemes

1. Entrepreneurial student 1.1 Personal development

1.2 Professional immersion
1.3 Internationality

2. Entrepreneurial learning 2.1 Project based learning

2.2 Experiential learning

3. Contextual challenges to
3.1 Sociocultural challenges
entrepreneurship learning 3.2 Organizational challenges

Following the direction of Merriam (2009), I tried to connect those conceptual

elements into a comprehensive meaningful model related to the problem of the study. In

the remainder of the section, I summarized the findings for each research question by

discussing the major themes and subthemes.

 52
Theme 1. Entrepreneurial Student

This theme relates to the following overarching question, “What role, if any, does

the process of entrepreneurship learning play in boosting professional achievement for

undergraduate students at a university setting” and to the subquestion, “How could

professional achievement be described from an entrepreneurial perspective?” The theme

of entrepreneurial student could be grounded in the learning paradigm theory that places

the learner at the center of entrepreneurship learning. The data revealed how professional

achievement shaped the personality of the entrepreneurial student. Therefore, the

following levers are the main contributors to the shaping of the personality of the

entrepreneurial student in the Moroccan context: personal development, professional

immersion, and internationality.

Personal development. All participants agreed that entrepreneurship learning

should focus on the development of personal attributes that foster leadership, which

include risk taking, initiative skills, collaboration, self-confidence, autonomy,

communication skills, and relationship skills as supported by research (Gutierrez &

Guerrero, 2012; Martin et al., 2012). Student participant B confirmed that “learning

should more focus on the personality of the entrepreneur and mainly develop the personal

attributes.” She went on stating that, “[The entrepreneur] should be reactive in order to

take risk in investing her time, her energy, and her resources to create value and create

wealth.” Student A identified some of the personal skills that entrepreneurship learning

should develop when she said, “Entrepreneurship is very interesting, because it not only

provides you with the qualified resource to hire to execute the job for the boss, but
 53
provides the individual with initiative capabilities, critical thinking, and problem solving

skills.”

Collaboration was reported by the majority of the participants. Student I reported

that, “the entrepreneur should interrelate with others, learn from other cultures, learn how

others think.” Student C indicated that universities should prepare students to act

appropriately within companies. To the probe, how should they act, the participant stated

that, “[Students] should be able to work in team and have a spirit of sharing.” The

analysis of data also revealed that professional and personal achievement is related to

entrepreneurial learning.

Students J argued that entrepreneurship learning leads students to celebrate full

success of their professional life and develop personal endurance against potential failure

in the market. The participant commented that, “I want to talk about the spirit of

entrepreneurship. It will help people achieve their professional life so they can’t

surrender after the first handicap they meet. That means that there is endurance, a positive

spirit [that] won’t give up.” Student participants believed that entrepreneurship learning

would contribute to boost the students’ personal fulfillment. Participants recommended

that undergraduate students should know themselves better in order to orient their career

development. Participant I stated that,

Entrepreneurship learning will help students attain their professional achievement

because that will enable them to know themselves better and have a better

visibility on their achievement over the 3 years of the bachelor; that means, they

will try to appropriately understand the labor market [that] apprehend the risk to
 54
take and the one not to take so as to avoid being disappointed [when confronted

with external world], because what we have studied here at the undergraduate

level is far from reality.

The majority of student participants confirmed that universities in general and

UIC do not favor a behavioral oriented learning of their undergraduate studies. Even if

the majority of participants were happy about the quality of teaching methods and the

surrounding facilities of UIC, they were aware that personal competencies were not

prioritized as a learning strategy. Participant C commented that, “personal competencies

are not taught to us at the university.” Participant J went in the same direction when he

stated that, “[His undergraduate studies] did not promote entrepreneurship learning,

otherwise I could have majored in entrepreneurship,” and asked for “more courses of

leadership, because to launch one’s venture, you must be a leader.”

The analyzed data derived from the academic leader participants confirmed the

behavioral pattern of the entrepreneurial student as explained above. Academic leader G

commented that, “[Entrepreneurship learning] is to show to students how to gain self-

confidence…and the spirit of the winner and performer.” Therefore students could

promote their university by communicating on their projects and self-marketing their

image on and off campus. Participants G stated that, “[entrepreneurship learning] is the

promotion of what the student does, that translates her pride of belonging to the college

because the fact of promoting my college means that you are satisfied with the learning

you receive at the university.” Academic leader H focused on the personal dimension in

the process of entrepreneurship learning. Participant H believed that business

 55
management is chosen by less achievable students compared to other colleges like

engineering and health because,

If you are at a university to do a traditional business management major, that

means that you are an average student, which means that you already have a bad

impression about yourself as a student; so, what we need is to give confidence to

student from the start.

Student participant D believed that self-confidence is acquired when students

manage to achieve a nonacademic performance. She stated, “I have a feeling of

achievement. I feel I have learned something. But, I had not this same feeling when I

passed my exams or my courses. I had it by winning the third place in the McGuire

business game competition.”

An important finding was that the majority of student participants were aware of

the impact of entrepreneurship learning on personality development later in the context of

their confrontation with the external environment in the form of internships that were

very limited in time and period in the curriculum. Business leaders are more sensitive to

environmental pressures. They constituted the participants whose perspectives helped

informing the knowledge and confirmed the behavioral pattern derived from data.

Business leader E suggested to rationalize the process of entrepreneurship learning to

allow comparative analysis of this central phenomena among different cultures. He

stated,

The rationalization of the entrepreneurial behavior is, to my mind, one among the

prerequisites of the success of the entrepreneurial learning, but this should start
 56
earlier in age. It’s a curriculum that is constructed gradually to know about

oneself as an actor in his sociocultural environment.

According to the business leader E, the personality is the key factor that would

condition the entrepreneurial achievement of graduates. He commented,

The real debate to my mind, in this process, should be focused on the personality

of the entrepreneur. I prefer having an average project, lower than average with a

high entrepreneurial profile, a fighter, self-confident, someone with a well done

and structured brain, humble, than someone who brings an excellent project with

a high profitable market but whose entrepreneurial profile is average. The latter

have the least chances to succeed in business.

Business leader E confirmed that students needed to gain self-confidence. He

believed that entrepreneurship learning could develop the personality of the students to

become entrepreneurs or intrapreneurs with entrepreneurial attributes that include, among

others, autonomy, self-confidence, and a sharing spirit. He stated,

The student is, in most cases, depreciated, which weakens her personality and

feels skeptical about her personal qualities and her later choices as an

adult…Technical training is important but not sufficient. Personal development,

coaching, and mentoring of professional entrepreneurs are the key elements for

the success of the entrepreneurial adventure. Entrepreneurs should have a mental

out of iron, solid enough to move beyond any possible failure.

 57
Business leaders focused on the energy and personal skill instead of traditional

competencies that students should develop in order to become real entrepreneurs.

Business leader K believed that,

Students should reflect on their learning and learn how to better know

themselves, their capacities, and their uniqueness along their learning

process…What is important in a curriculum of entrepreneurship learning is the

interpersonal relationship skills, because in general, individuals in organizations

or schools might have a lot of competencies, a lot good will, but in most times,

they don’t know how to collaborate. They have not learned to be open minded, to

trust other, to work in teams, and to onsider the difference as a source of

complementarity.

Participants believed that personal development of students is a key element on

the process of their entrepreneurial learning at the university setting. Participants

associated personal development to students’ entrepreneurial attributes that include self-

confidence, energy, collaboration, spirit of sharing, autonomy, risk taking, creativity, and

endurance.

Professional immersion. The majority of participants associated

entrepreneurship learning with the capacity of students to integrate with success into the

professional environment either through employment, self-employment, or social

entrepreneurship. The majority of student participants were satisfied with the academic

learning obtained at the UIC. However, they all confirmed that the functional knowledge

accumulated at the university was not enough to develop an entrepreneurial mindset.

 58
Student J stated that, “Young people want to create their own venture. They have the

intention but not the know how to do so… I really want to create my enterprise after a

while of professional experience.” Student D advocated for a partnership between the

university and the Moroccan confederation of the professional sector, CGEM, and active

incubators in order to promote venture creation and ensure the rate of post creation

success. He stated,

I want to talk about the Moroccan context. Today, Morocco is promoting

entrepreneurship, namely at the CGEM that is creating a concept of start up days.

I think these are training sessions for start ups, and CGEM is collaborating with

universities to prepare people to launch their ventures with efficacy. The

university has a crucial role to contribute to the success of new ventures and avoid

their failures, as 90% of new projects fails…The coaching should be ensured by a

professor or a professional and through partnership with incubators that might

assist those student entrepreneurs.

Student A associated innovation and creativity skill to entrepreneurship efforts

because, “You should always learn entrepreneurship not only to become a creative

individual, but to become a rationalized person, you optimize costs, even if it’s not your

company, you should think as an entrepreneur.” She stated,

Universities should not confine entrepreneurship learning to entrepreneurs only.

Employees having chosen a stable job should benefit from entrepreneurship

learning that would transform them to become entrepreneurs…Intrapreneurship

and entrepreneurship are linked together, you are an entrepreneur when you create
 59
new jobs but also an entrepreneur within an existing company, which will bring in

new blood to the company.

Student participants considered long term internships as the effective process that

would help students familiarize with the professional environment and chose the business

or the organizational context where they would promote their career. Student D

commented,

University teaches us concepts and methods. Competency is the real use of those

methods…to succeed professionally, you have to master the use of those

concepts. This is why we see a person advancing rapidly in his career compared

to another. Internships are very helpful. Each year, we know that we have a

mandatory internship term in the third year of the bachelor …whereas other

competing schools impose internships during each year of the undergraduate

program. This, I think, stimulates chronologically and gradually the individual in

the professional life. Each year you capitalize on the previous year’s professional

experience.

In the same pattern, Student A stated that,

You should do many internships. Personally, I did not do internships, and I really

regret that. I have done one internship term during the third year of my bachelor

and now during my master graduation internship. I realize that you need to have

substantial experience to not only choose the appropriate internship but take the

right way of career.

 60
When asked what university should do to promote professional achievement,

Student participant I responded,

This is why we getting back to the experience…with internships…because our

internships of 4 or 5 weeks at the end of our bachelor program at least introduced

us to the environment of the company and do not confront us with the different

layers of the firm. Now at my fifth year of program, when I go out for the

company, I see other things that are missing in our curriculum at the university.

In the same pattern, Student C noted, “I think that we should encourage many internship

experiences, that we should not wait till the bachelor capstone project or the third year to

submit our internship dissertation, [and] that we should experience internships all over

the program.”

Student participants believed that the role of universities is to develop the

entrepreneurial student capable of bringing in social change in the Moroccan society.

Student I noted, “Unfortunately, we are taught courses and tools that will help us find a

job but not be active agents of positive change in our society.” All student participants

provided evidence of their awareness about the professional challenges to which they will

be confronted after graduation either as an employee or as an employer. Student J noted

that “the entrepreneurship action is not limited to venture creation, but to how ensuring

its functioning and perenity.” Students want to be equipped with practical skills that

enable them to think strategically and respond to environmental changes to which firms

are confronted. Student B noted that the “university should in this case provide the

student with tools of strategic reasoning and not theoretical knowledge…how to manage
 61
people, how to manage moods, a team for example, but all this should be practical and

not theoretical.” To a probing question, what universities should do to prepare students

on the professional level, Student I responded,

I think you should be realistic. That means you should know about the labor

market. Why, because in my undergraduate studies, we received education to

apply it in an idealistic world, within an environment that is perfect, [and] without

risk. We will graduate, we will have such remuneration, and so you are taught a

blurred reality…[And] when you go out to the real world, you are disappointed.

By realism, students meant a real knowledge about the Moroccan labor market

where they would evolve as an employee and the business environment where they could

operate as a venture owner. Student B stated, “Entrepreneurship learning transforms a

part of students toward entrepreneurship. I think they will be capable of understanding

the enterprise, its internal, and external environmental challenges.” The majority of

students believed that immersion in the real world could be very helpful in boosting their

professional achievement. Student C stated,

I think, in one year, I could learn more in terms of field experience than at the

university. That means what is learned in courses, in books, ,is not what we see in

real professional life, in day to day life, this is not real…with experience, things

are different.

Some student found that their university organized some events to promote

entrepreneurial spirit of learners. Those events included conference, job fairs, and

competitions. However, students criticized the non regularity of those events over the 3
 62
years of the undergraduate business program, the quality of communication, and

organization between the students and the administration. Student participants were

aware about the positive impact of those extracurricular activities on their professional

capabilities that include networking with professionals, leadership development, and

internship opportunities. Student C stated,

I have seen in the health department that students have many internships. They

have been at the university hospital. Everybody works and has a lot of meetings

with the health professionals. I find this very interesting…We had very good

instructors in class who taught high quality courses but they did not learn us how

to behave within the enterprise.

Students argued that the curriculum of the undergraduate business program does

not encourage innovation. To the question, what did you do instead, Student A

responded,

I have personally worked in the community service area and done some projects

in parallel. I like to do whatever has to do with practice. I have realized a project

called “Education programme” in partnership with the Moroccan American club

that is located at the American consulate. I was the project’s manager [and]

negotiated with partners.

Students A, I, B, and D confirmed that their university should be more active in

the promotion of the students’ civic sensitivity. Student B believed that “University

should incite students to practice social entrepreneurship.”

 63
The pattern of knowledge derived from the analysis of academic leaders

interviews confirmed the importance of professional immersion in the shaping of the

student’s entrepreneurial personality. Academic Leader G stated,

Let’s talk about learning. There are complementary notions. Teaching has more

an academic dimension, while learning should have a professional aspect, which

means that learning is competency and not knowledge-based and should adapt to

the requirements of labor market…I instruct [students] for a job. I instruct for the

labor market. [In the hospitality major] we have internships and experiential

assignments to develop the student’s entrepreneurial spirit and initiative that will

enable her manage real professional situations.

Academic leader G mentioned examples of competency-based entrepreneurial

initiatives preparing students for professional immersion, namely, “The creation of on-

line travel agency and the organization of a gala dinner for the commencement ceremony

next September.”

Academic leader H believed that the primary role of university is to prepare

students for employment. He stated,

I think that students of business management are not all of them future

entrepreneurs. They are here to acquire a know-how and master methods to work

in companies. That means they will be good managers, executors, but have not

necessarily the leadership to manage an entrepreneurship project.

Business leaders perceived entrepreneurship learning as process that enables

students to make professional choices in their careers. Therefore, it is important to

 64
motivate students by “Showing them the benefit to become one’s own boss, create one’s

venture, bring in social change, and produce wealth” (Business Leader E). According to

Business Leader E, the entrepreneurial candidate is “Accompanied until himself and her

project are mature to benefit from venture capital…We construct with her the business

model and the business plan, challenge her about the entrepreneurial choices, and prepare

her to become the boss.” Business Leader F believed that universities should prepare

students to successfully interact with the market, the client, and the operational

challenges of business processes. He stated, “[Entrepreneurs] takes in charge the

administrative task, looks for new markets, conducts research, goes out to meet the client,

supervises his accountancy, [and] cover their managerial environment.” An important

finding corresponded to what Business Leader F referred as the role of the adaptive or

intelligent university in shaping the professional identity of the future student

entrepreneur, because,

The university has a double role. The first one is to educate professionals with

technical and managerial competencies. The second role is to learn about the

business sector that might be associated to the professional [sector] that will

receive the product employee and the business venture being created…That means

we start to ensure equilibrium within a business sector and it’s the adaptive

university, the intelligent university that should be the mentor of this model, of

course, in partnership with the professional sector. (Business Leader F)

Internationality. Students stated that the international experience they benefited

from in the context of exchanges with some universities and schools of the laureate
 65
network impacted their personality and reinforced their entrepreneurial attributes. To the

question how your undergraduates studied promoted entrepreneurial learning, Student C

responded,

There is also the experience I lived at Madrid. I have profited from an Erasmus

exchange and that helped a lot my organizational behavior and my capacity to

discover other cultures. I think that makes a difference between a student who

stayed closed within the walls of the university and a student who went abroad to

discover the international environment.

Student I revealed that his international experience within a French business

school belonging to Laureate had boosted his entrepreneurial attributes. He stated,

I fortunately benefited from an international exchange opportunity, and, I think

this should be mandatory for all students. Why, because during this exchange

experience, we go out of our comfort zone and get confronted to different aspects

we don’t meet in the same environment…I have seen at the French school

students belonging to other international universities. I saw they are risk taking.

They collaborate and learn from others and I think that risk taking is an attribute

that is covered by the issue of entrepreneurship.

To the question, is internationality important, Academic Leader G responded,

“[Students] can’t be achievable without an international openness. We can’t succeed

unless we adopt an international vision. [A student] who does not achieve an international

internship has little chance to be [an entrepreneur].”

 66
Personal development, professional immersion, and internationality were the key

contributors that emerged from the interview analysis and shaped the student

entrepreneur. Entrepreneurial student was the first major theme likely to answer the first

research question, “What role, if any, does the process of entrepreneurship learning play

in boosting professional achievement for undergraduate students at a university setting?”

and to the subquestion, “How could professional achievement be described from an

entrepreneurial perspective”

Document analysis provided relevant data out of which emerged some findings

that corroborated the general pattern revealed by participants. The analysis of the

accreditations application sent to the ministry of education for accreditation review of the

organisation and business major confirmed the perspectives of participants about the

academic orientation of the curriculum. The academic leader who prepared the document

did not use the terms entrepreneurship or entrepreneurial and did not focus on any of the

entrepreneurial attributes that emerged from data analysis. However, the accreditation

document devoted an entire heading to the impact of training on student employability.

While student participants expressed general satisfaction of the quality of academic

learning obtained at UIC, they perceived that learning was theoretical and did not

contribute to boost them as an entrepreneurial student. The 2015 accreditation document

listed the following learning target of the bachelor degree in business:

The business administration major represents a fundamental level for bachelor

cycle studies. Its educational program is designed to train students to meet the

changing objectives and management of the different private and public

 67
organizations. It is defined as an intermediate degree that is a requirement for

postgraduate levels.

While the document listed the learning outcomes of the business program on

employability in one heading, it did not associate the outcome of employability to

entrepreneurial attributes mentioned by the participants. The accreditation document

prioritized the long-term academic orientation of the bachelor program offering the

possibility for graduates to take a professional career. The 2015 accreditation application

listed the following learning outcome statement:

Graduates are qualified to deepen their higher education through long-terms

postgraduates studies…The program aims at developing student’s research skills

for the master degree. However, students, if they wish, could make a professional

career by working in the professional sector, enrolling in a professional master, or

preparing an accountant career.

The analysis of the mission statement of UIC revealed that the participants’

perspectives about the entrepreneurial mission of the university and the reality of learning

misaligned with the mission expressed by the institution. The former president of UIC,

introduced the mission in these terms:

The mission of the international university of Casablanca is to train future

professionals with the highest performance standards. With this in mind, we offer

our students a curricular that is adapted to both socio-economic requirements of

Morocco and directed towards the development of personal and professional skills

of students who are at the heart of our teaching methods. Designed in compliance
 68
with ethics, culture and Moroccan values, our university is established around

three underlying axes: professional success, international outreach, and academic

excellence. (Antonio, personal communication, September, 23, 2011)

The learning reality that prevailed into the university is a teaching based approach

that impeded both the university and the students from attaining their respective

achievements from an entrepreneurial perspective. This problem is a current issue in

higher education. Institutions searching for academic excellence have been engaged in a

transformation process toward the learning paradigm framework. Tagg (2003) and

Barefoot et al. (2005) reported the names of institutions that have succeeded in this

change endeavor. Studying this problem led to explaining the second major theme of data

analysis that relates to the process of entrepreneurial learning.

Theme 2. Entrepreneurial Learning

This theme relates to the following research questions: What are the challenges

facing academic leaders’ attempts to implement entrepreneurship learning in Moroccan

context” and “How could the institutional and organizational levels of the university

support entrepreneurship learning and outcomes completion. Participants reported their

perspectives about entrepreneurial learning and main innovative learning approaches that

enable students to become an entrepreneurial student. Entrepreneurial learning was

grounded in the conceptual framework chosen for this project study and conceptualized

the main challenges that have faced the implementation of entrepreneurial learning

initiatives at UIC as supported by participants. Therefore, the following learning

 69
processes have been identified par participants to inform the entrepreneurial learning

themes: project-based learning and experiential learning.

Project-based learning. The majority of participants used the term project to

refer to the process of entrepreneurial learning. Student A stated that entrepreneurship

learning started by “Showing [to the student] how to find a project idea [and]

incorporating a comprehensive curriculum about how to manage a project.” Student B

stated that the project’s content should be real and in connection with the social and

economic environment of the student. Student D reported that entrepreneurship learning

should equip students with competencies that enable them to apply a methodology and

construct a business plan project. He stated, “Learning will enable me to acquire the

methodology that guides me to realize a project as an entrepreneur,” which would

contribute to increase the rate of project’s success in the real professional sector where

“90% of project’s holders fail.” According to Student D, the project-based methodology

should rely on the accompaniment process to motivate the student to go ahead with his

capstone project. He stated,

I have said that in my speech at the first Macguire competition. That means that

students should take the initiative [and] be engaged to realize their project. I think

that it’s crucial for the university to participate in the realization process of this

project and I think this is what has been missing in some cases: the

accompaniment.

Students I and C stated that entrepreneurship learning should be based on a

curriculum that guides students about how to realize different stages of the project in a
 70
sequential way. Student I responded, “ There is for example, the know-how to realize a

business plan and action plans, which consist in establishing the stages and the logical

sequence to achieve a project.” Student C identified the project-based processes that

should be implemented in entrepreneurship learning at UIC. She stated,

[University] should learn us how we could work in a project as a team, build a

new project [and] follow the steps from A to Z of the project. That is from its

budget, marketing, to sales. I think this is what we should be up to [at UIC].

Academic leaders participants confirmed that project based learning could be

recognized as an entrepreneurial learning process that enable student to be fully engaged

in their learning and to market their image as a professional. Academic Leader G stated,

“We try to develop projects. Our curriculum is essentially project-based. [Students]

develop what we call integrated project and integrate the relevant business fields to the

project, including management, the environment, human resources, finance, and

marketing.” Students could also use projects to promote what they do, brand their image

as potential leaders, and regain self-confidence. Academic Leader G stated,

There is the project of free open days whereby I asked first years students to

communicate on their Facebook and Twitter about the organisation of this event.

This is to show that communication is vital to any project. A project where

students will take the initiative. So they will not be passive but active to invite

their friends to the event. However, to my mind, this initiative has been so far

undertaken at the institutional level, at the university level, on the website, and
 71
Facebook of the university…I think that it’s more credible when students

recommends their schools, which reflect their strong belonging to the college.

The academic leader participant continued to argue that project based learning

contributed to motivate students and reinforced their feeling of achievement. He

responded,

I found that projects based learning yielded amazing results. Students themselves

press to go ahead with the process of the project realization. For example, in the

case of lunch gala, students come to see me to report about what they do. That’s a

positive issue that provides evidence about the engagement and enthusiasm of

student. Because for me, the most important issue is to have the courage to

enterprise.

Academic Leader H confirmed that while project-based learning was not formally

assigned as part of the curriculum, students working on projects were able to nourish

their taste for entrepreneurship. He mentioned, “I have seen during the last two years that

students were asked to realize a service learning project that involves them in a project

based process. That gives them the taste to gear up for entrepreneurship.”

Business leaders have associated project-based learning to the process of students’

entrepreneurship development. An important finding was raised when Business Leader K

clearly distinguished between entrepreneurship curriculum as an input and its activation

as a process that enables student to develop entrepreneurial attributes. She stated,

So, to summarize, there is what [students] do in the context of the

entrepreneurship curriculum that might look like reality, with a direct impact. But
 72
there is also all about the way a project is conducted with others and in contact

with the professional reality that develops the students’ curiosity as learners, soft

skills, and a mindset.

Business Leader K synthesized her definition of project-based learning applied to

entrepreneurship in the following response that finds resonance in the double-loop

learning developed by Argyris (1991),

So, I think that action learning and field work is mandatory and that there should

be a recursive loop. In fact, we move through phases of project. There are

different project stages and then, once we experiment the first phase of the

project, here we have a recursive stage of reflection of learning, and come to ask:

what do we have. First an experimentation that fits in the global project, then

reflection, learning, what worked and what did not work, and what should we

modify to realize the second prototype.

The responses of participants captured the essence of the project-based learning as

a subtheme that fits into the major theme of entrepreneurial learning and confirmed

Boha’s (2010) findings about the outcomes of this innovative learning initiative on

student’s entrepreneurial achievement. In alignment with the conceptual framework of

this study, Business Leader k stated that, “The constructivist approach, collaboration and

reflection come to support the project.”

Experiential learning. An important finding was that participants’ perspectives

about the activation of entrepreneurship learning process confirmed the association that

research made between experiential learning and the outcome of developing

 73
entrepreneurial mindset (Ehiyazaryan & Barraclough, 2009; Rae, & Carswell, 2000).

Student A stated that while traditional teaching methods at the university did not promote

innovation and creativity, she was obliged to turn out to work on off-campus activities

that included, among others, service learning. She mentioned,

[Innovation and entrepreneurial spirit] are not encouraged because there had been

only one business game at the master level and not at the undergraduate level. We

could not be more innovative and creative at the university…[As a consequence] I

worked in service learning and other practical things [on my own initiative].

The majority of students confirmed that the undergraduate curriculum did offer

them neither freedom nor flexibility to experience activates they considered essential for

entrepreneurial achievement. The following students’ responses captured the essence of

this finding:

[It could be interesting] if [university] provided substantial time for every thing to

do with practice [and] leadership. They talk to us about leadership in books,

leadership is this and this. But in reality we don’t see what is

leadership…Sometimes we finish the course and we come just because we have

not yet finished the course load. We come just for coming…But for me, it could

be very interesting if we gave importance to practice (Student A).

Students don’t take initiatives because the curriculum is overloaded…We could

inspire from the American model where you have only four to five courses and

the remainder of time you go out to work for some money, practice sports, [and]

participate in competition. At the university, the major problem is that we got in

 74
class at 8 am, went out at 12 am, got in at 2 pm, and went out at 6 pm, like in high

school. In fact, this is not the spirit that should prevail at the university that should

provide you with knowledge, time, and freedom to practice other activities that

include sports, experience. Like when I was at Canada, I went to college and did

community service…This is the experience that we could acquire and use in

entrepreneurship (Student D).

We could suggest something for the sake of the university. We could adopt the

American system and schedule the same course at different time periods so to

allow students to have the choice to follow courses either during the morning or

the afternoon and practice a part-time professional activity (Student C).

Students believed that the curriculum offered at their university is disconnected

from the real world. While they mentioned their satisfaction about the business

knowledge offered by the university, they said that learning was so theoretical and did

not promote entrepreneurial achievement. These responses of the students summarized

the essence of this finding:

Theory is good. We should know what is theoretical, but it must be supported by

practice…I hope there should be a balance between [theory and practice] so that

everybody learns in an appropriate way (Student A).

What we learn in courses and books is disconnected from what we see in field

work (Student C).

We had courses about innovation, but were theoretical. To my mind, this is not

innovation. Because we could ask a student who has just finished this course:
 75
what is the difference between invent and innovate, I am sure 80% could not

answer…We have to shift to the important level of living innovation instead of

just knowing it (Student B).

I can say that in my undergraduate program, 70% of instructors came to deliver

theoretical courses no more. We did not discuss anything else (Student I).

I think that my undergraduate studies did not promote entrepreneurial learning;

otherwise, I could have majored in entrepreneurship (Student J).

One student mentioned that he was satisfied with the impact of the undergraduate

curriculum on his entrepreneurial achievement. However, he added that extracurricular

activities were a key factor that enabled him to apply the learned theoretical knowledge

and experience it in the real world as supported by the research of Zimmerman (2012).

He stated,

In general, the curriculum that I followed in my bachelor in business allowed me

to know about how to realize a project. But the university organized some

extracurricular activities that included [Mcguire] business plan, DecoCampus…It

was not only about methodology but also initiative. The majority of student lack

initiative even if we introduce them to this methodology. The [Mcguire]

competition enabled me to apply my business courses in the competition. The

university allowed me to apply theoretical knowledge to practice through

extracurricular activities. (Student D)

From the above findings, we could note that students’ perspectives supported Rae

(2007) who revealed that the following activities were the key experiential processes for
 76
students’ personal and professional development: internships, part-time or vacation work,

self-employment or freelancing, community or service learning activity, and active role

in extracurricular organizations or sports.

To the question whether the bachelor curriculum supported entrepreneurship

learning, Student B stated,

It was more technical. There has been some courses of management that covered

most of the operations and organization of the company, but that was more

technical. It was more theory that we could find in all enterprises, but that did not

incite us to have this ambition to create once own venture [and] take risk.

Students also shared their perspectives about the learning environment in the

classroom. They found that the environment was restrictive and could not favor freedom

of exchange among students nor creativity and innovation. Student A stated,

I find that there are restrictions not only at UIC but in other institutions in general.

For example, when we are in class and that you sit in a certain way. The instructor

is not happy [because] you should sit appropriately. That kills the person.

Personally, I don’t like this. I am an energetic person, and when the instructor

says to me: stop don’t move a lot, I can’t even think, which disturbs me. So I

think if we are within a less restricted environment, that will give you the desire to

imagine, create, and innovate.

To promote entrepreneurial learning students also suggested that university

should encourage the use of non-traditional learning tools that include business games,
 77
case studies, competitions, company visits, oral presentations, undergraduate research,

and technology. The following students’ responses captured the essence of this finding:

I will first use case studies, debates, and business games. For me, I think that

these three instruments are very important to inculcate the spirit of

entrepreneurship to students (Student D).

I think that one of the activities that develop this entrepreneurial aspect is oral

presentations. That means, [we] present subjects, argue and defend our own ideas

and points of view (Student I).

I could imagine an activity where we simulate a recruitment interview involving

all my colleagues in changing roles activity (Student C).

I could suggest workshops. Yes it could take place in the classroom. There are

activities that might take place off-campus, [learning] should not be limited to

what happens among the walls of the academia but can be processed outside

(Student J).

I would like to have practical cases, also multimedia because there are individuals

that don’t learn neither by listening nor writing, but rather by watching (Student

A).

Another important finding was that students’ responses were consistent with the

literature that considered that the implication of faculty members is a condition for the

success of entrepreneurial learning (Fargion et al., 2011; Herkema & Schout, 2008;

Komulainen et al., 2011; Nejad et al., 2012). Students focused on the new facilitating role
 78
played by the instructor who becomes an instrument of learning (Hubbard, 2012;

Monaghan, 2011). The following students’ responses captured the essence of this finding:

The instructor has this difficulty to attract the attention of the student and interest

them with his course and to lead them where he wants to. (Student B)

Instructors…There are instructors that do not smile. I don’t like it too much,

because personally, I am someone who is affected by the mood. So I prefer that

the atmosphere of the class is relaxed (Student A).

I would like that [instructor’s role] change, to have instructors that learn us the

personal skills, how to construct the personality, and how to bring in positive

change in society. (Student I)

An important finding was that UIC academic leaders agreed with students that

moving toward an effective learning of entrepreneurship should be triggered by a shift

from teacher-based to learner-based methods, in alignment with Moalosi et al. (2012).

Academic leader G stated,

We practice learning when we develop a new paradigm [and] a new pedagogy.

The instructor in this case is no more the instructor in the traditional definition.

She is the coach. She is here to facilitate and pull out the potentialities of students.

As a coach, she should focus her teaching on interactivity [and] the use of new

information technology. A comprehensive approach that encompasses

competencies to help students get into the professional world.

Academic Leader H advocated for a comprehensive competency-based

curriculum that overlooks entrepreneurship to encompass skills related to environmental

 79
and social issues. The participant’s response supported scholars (Rae, 2010;

Sardeshmukh & Nelson, 2011) who revealed that linear instructional assessment methods

that include business plans and theoretical knowledge do not lead to develop

entrepreneurial mindsets. Participant H stated,

I have a different perception to entrepreneurship. I want to say that those things

[business plan, documents] are easy to learn. This is not the problem. The real

problem is to have individuals with competencies [and] a global vision about

things. [They should] profit from this entrepreneurship bridge to cover

environmental and social issues that are so important for Morocco today.

Business Leader K mentioned in similar pattern that entrepreneurship learning

should be connected to reality and facilitated by instructors,

When you put students in real situations, they go on learning entrepreneurial

competencies by themselves. Doing so, on the one hand, would have direct

impact on their employability, which is processed in field work, and on the

second hand would enable them on a personal level to improve their capacity to

learn on their own…There should be visits to companies and connections with

professionals and facilitators with the role of coach and mentor.

Business Leader E agreed that entrepreneurship learning should rely on,

The experience of experts in the domain of entrepreneurship, coaches, and

psychologist…One of the techniques to evaluate the potential of students to

manage difficult situations would be to put them in stress situation where you see

how they overcome it.

 80
Because of the dominance of theoretical knowledge at universities, business

leaders reported that their experiences with university incubators has confronted them

with young researchers instead of real entrepreneurs and called universities to develop an

entrepreneurship curriculum to rationalize the entrepreneurial behavior. Because, “With a

researcher, we can’t build a business venture” (Business Leader E).

Participant H also revealed an important finding about assessment. She claimed

that the few extracurricular activities that took place on-campus were not formally

considered as part of the curriculum and so were not assessed. She stated,

To assess extracurricular activities, I have never thought about it. For me it could

be the first time such things happen, because I ever heard about such kind of

assessment…Well, that would mean that you will be assessed for your

implication…It would be very encouraging for students. That’s a positive point.

That means that student would have a tangible return on investment.

Academic Leader G shared the same perspective when she stated that

“Assessment should not be done in an academic way. I won’t give students a grade, but I

will assess them as if in real professional situation. That means, they should prove

initiative, imagination, and team work.”

The findings that I explained under the theme of entrepreneurial learning

corroborated with the academic priorities stated in the documents of accreditation

application of the business major at UIC. Along the three years of the business major

leading to the bachelor, the university added a 12 hour course for introduction to
 81
entrepreneurship that Business Leader H qualified as an important achievement. The

participant stated,

As we applied for the renewal of the management major accreditation last year,

we added the following course: introduction to entrepreneurship that did not exist

before. So that was innovation. It’s a 12 hours course. So it is just enough to give

a taste, unfortunately. But it’s already a good initiative because it’s a course that

did not exist beforehand. So [imagine] you have a business major and you have

no course of entrepreneurship. A 12 hours course is better than nothing.

The analysis of data that emerged from the documents revealed that learning

priorities focused on the statements about the functional and theoretical knowledge

belonging to business major with no reference to the learning environment or experiential

delivery approaches. This finding confirmed the general pattern extracted out the analysis

of participants interviews that entrepreneurial learning was not a learning priority and that

the prevailing of traditional teaching approaches at university setting impeded the

development of entrepreneurial mindset among students.

Theme 3. Contextual Challenges to Entrepreneurial Learning

This theme relates to these research questions: “What are the challenges facing

academic leaders’ attempts to implement entrepreneurship learning in Moroccan context”

and “How could the institutional and organizational levels of the university support

entrepreneurship learning and outcomes completion” One of the objectives of this

qualitative study was to provide the reader with a resulting knowledge that Merriam

(2009) recognized as more concrete and more contextual with respect to the participants’
 82
perspectives that are grounded in the Moroccan sociocultural reality. The following

subthemes were recognized to shape the pattern of data: sociocultural challenge and

organizational challenge.

Sociocultural challenge. The majority of participants reported that cultural

aspects should be considered when evaluating the efficacy of entrepreneurship learning

programs. While entrepreneurship requires empowerment, student reported that

university made them feel like kids. This situation impeded the promotion of

entrepreneurial spirit because “We consider the student as K-12 student a teenager, while

at the university one should empower student. I also blame the university for calling our

parents” (Student D). The same feeling was expressed by Student C when she mentioned,

I think that at university, we are no more kids…I think we arrive at a level [of

life] where we are responsible. So let’s talk about challenges. Sometimes

academic leaders and deans are not collaborative. They do not satisfy the needs of

their students in different departments by talking to them directly.

One student reported that the community is not supportive to entrepreneurship

initiative because she stated that, “When I confront people and say to them that I want to

launch my venture, they tell me you don’t have enough experience. You will confront a

weird world. You know nothing about it” (Student J). Business Leader E corroborated

this last finding when she cited having supported potential Moroccan entrepreneurs after

they passed years in the USA. She stated,

I see around me individuals who have been in the U.S.A. and who get back to

Morocco to launch their business. The first thing I have noticed is that they were
 83
exposed to a strong pressure to the point they come to my office crying that her

parents, her aunt, or her husband blamed her to get back to Morocco leaving

behind him a confortable social situation and accept taking risks by creating a

new venture with all uncertainties it implies (Business Leader E).

Business Leader E believed that Moroccan students are being frustrated by two

challenges,

There is the cultural challenge that stops [the entrepreneur]. For example: you

should trust nobody. You risk to be swindled. Association is an already

announced failure…The second challenge is related to our behavior that is not in

the sharing. We are individualists in our approach. This is a sociocultural factor

that has nothing to do with competence.

During the interview I had with Business Leader E, the latter focused on the

cultural and sociocultural factors that challenged entrepreneurship learning in Morocco.

He suggested that curriculum should deal with this cultural aspect and added that “The

educational system should integrate a logical process, enough logical to overtake all these

sociocultural obstacles that included: beliefs, the weight of family, and the fear of

failure.”

Business Leader K mentioned that collaboration between the university and the

business world is challenged by the hostile neoliberal attitude of faculty and academic

leaders towards entrepreneurship and their resistance to sacrifice their conventional

teaching competencies for a facilitating role as supported by Komulainen et al. (2012)

and Fargion et al. (2012). She stated,

 84
In what looks to belong to a French culture, there is a distrust of academic staff

and faculty towards the private business sector. It’s we and them, as if there is

something incompatible and that [happens] unconsciously in the minds of some

faculty. In this underlying culture, there is this kind of belief that what happens at

the university is noble compared in value to what could happen in the professional

world that is associated to business. So the mindset of some individuals within

university could be an obstacle. There is resistance to change because

[entrepreneurship learning] calls for openness, collaboration, trust, and going out

some comfort zones.

Organizational challenge. Collaboration and partnership has been cited by

participants to support the shift of university toward an entrepreneurial oriented learning

strategy as supported by scholars (Fargion et al., 2012; Harkema & Schout, 2008; Mars &

Ginter, 2012). Students C and A stated that they have witnessed a communication gap

between the administration and students. Student A mentioned that university should

communicate to promote the activities realized by students. She cited,

In each project, there is a communication manager in charge to communicate on

social media. But in case there is not a communication manager among students, I

think that university should take the lead to communicate those actions and

promote the institution. Because people will see that students of UIC are leaders

[and] are managers.

Student D believed that university should collaborate with funding institutions to

provide funding to entrepreneurs. He stated,

 85
The only obstacle that might happen is the obstacle of budget and funding. In fact,

a project requires a budget that depends on the project. The university might

either afford that budget or collaborate with other institutions to afford it. For

example, [leadership may] collaborate with a national bank to secure debts under

the warrant of the university that champion the project.

Academic and business leaders were more sensitive to issues related to

organizational challenges and their impact on the implementation of entrepreneurship

learning at university setting. While academic leaders at UIC agreed that the leadership

encourages innovation, they believed that UIC’s learning realities should undergo a

strategic transformative change to attain institutional effectiveness with respect to

entrepreneurship learning. Academic Leader G stated,

I think honestly that we still have a long way to go in the field [of

entrepreneurship learning]. We have to be sincere. I think that there actually exist

some isolated initiatives organized at the level of the university. But those

initiatives deserve to be coordinated, assessed, and associated to faculty and staff.

However, this initiative does not exist. There is a compartmentalization among

academic units, which I misunderstand. Because, today, all types of knowledge

are linked together, there should be a synergy among different academic units to

establish a vision and a strategy to go in the direction of learning. We can’t stay

confined in a pure traditional approach.

Academic Leader H blamed the engineering unit for implementing an

entrepreneurship initiative to student engineers called project from planification to

 86
realization (PCR) without involving the faculty of the business unit who would deal with

the business and managerial aspect of the project. This response was also shared by

Business Leader F who recommended that engineers and managers should collaborate to

design a joint entrepreneurship curriculum. Academic Leader G called for collaboration

with academic units stating that with respect to the PCR, “Faculty from the business unit

should be involved in the learning process.”

Evidence of Quality

Trustworthiness of the data was assured by the processes of member checks and

triangulation through the diversification of the methods used for collecting data,

interviews, and document review and following the direction on qualitative research

provided by Lodico et al. (2010) and Merriam (2009). I triangulated findings from

analysis of document data with findings from comparisons and contrasts of multiple

participant perspectives in order to support the general behavioral pattern that emerged

from data following the methods by Patton (1999).

Summary

The data gathered form 11 participants outlined here disclosed themes that

represented the feelings and perceptions of participants towards entrepreneurship learning

at university settings. I reviewed interview transcripts for common patterns and concepts

that were grounded in the conceptual framework that served this study. Following the

direction of Merriam (2009), I tried to connect those concepts into a meaningful and

logical model that relates to the research questions. The findings of the study could be

associated to a logical model of learning where the entrepreneurial student is the learning
 87
outcome of a comprehensive entrepreneurship learning process (Figure 1). This model is

grounded in the learning paradigm theory that prioritizes learning initiatives to promote

learning and student achievement. Under Theme 1 participants revealed that personal

development, professional immersion, and internationality are the main contributors to

students’ professional and entrepreneurial achievement. Theme 2 summarized the

participants’ perspectives about the process of entrepreneurial learning that would yield

the entrepreneurial student. Participants stated that project-based learning and

Figure 1. Logical model of entrepreneurship learning process showing

relationship between the concepts that emerged out of data analysis.
 88
experiential learning initiatives were suitable to create the appropriate learning

environment that enable student to develop community projects, undergraduate research

projects, or business plan projects. Therefore participants confirmed that the activation of

entrepreneurial learning with innovative assessment initiative led to educate engaged and

motivated students with entrepreneurial attributes.

The choice of UIC as a case study aimed at providing the reader with a contextual

knowledge about the cultural and organizational challenges at UIC from the participants’

perspective. For entrepreneurship learning to be effective, academic leaders should take

into account the nature of contextual challenges where learning should operate. Theme 3

introduced the sociocultural factors that included the impact of family, the fear of failure,

and traditional beliefs about entrepreneurship as challenges to entrepreneurship

achievement. The organizational challenges represented issues related to collaboration

among faculty and leadership of the university as well as resistance among faculty toward

change.

Based on the findings of this study, I concluded that participants believed that

entrepreneurial learning could lead to develop students with entrepreneurial attributes and

competencies to attain professional achievement. Participants suggested that

entrepreneurship curriculum should be comprehensive and improved to integrate project-

based and experiential learning initiatives. I concluded that participants’ perspectives to

entrepreneurship learning encompasse business and social areas aiming at shaping the

student’s entrepreneurial personality.

89
 90
Section 3: The Project

Introduction

In this research study, I explored the need to develop an entrepreneurial

constructivist learning initiative to shape the students’ entrepreneurial capacities and

professional achievement through the design of an integrative entrepreneurial course. I

selected the case study methodology for “Its uniqueness, for what it can reveal about the

phenomenon [of entrepreneurial learning], [contextual] knowledge to which we would

not otherwise have access” (Merriam, 2009). Using the purposeful sampling technique, I

conducted 11 in-depth interviews, analyzed data relying on transcribing participants’

quotations, and informed knowledge about the entrepreneurial phenomenon in alignment

with the constructivist and learning-centered frameworks.

The findings of the research revealed that traditional learning practice was the

dominant instructional strategy used at the university. Students provided a comprehensive

perspective of entrepreneurship learning that encompassed personal development, service

learning, employment, and self-employment. Participants were aware of the impact of

innovative learning methodologies that included project-based and experiential learning

initiatives on their entrepreneurial development, engagement, and motivation. This study

revealed that students were not being offered a comprehensive practical entrepreneurial

learning that would ensure the development of key entrepreneurial attributes.

Description and Goals

The goal of the study was the creation of a learning-centered environment that

maximizes students’ learning and professional achievement, and matches the new and
 91
qualitative standard that employers and community demands. The project will aim at

designing a course material for business plan development activities as a capstone for

entrepreneurial learning that is grounded in the constructivist framework. Therefore, the

conception of the entrepreneurial course will be guided by the following key principles:

1. Develop a comprehensive entrepreneurial curriculum reflecting an integrative

learning that yields the entrepreneurial mindset.

2. Define outcomes for student learning

3. Ensure integration of experiential and student-centered learning tools with the

learning outcomes.

4. Ensure students’ participation in diverse activities of learning experiences and

finalization of at least one project capstone

5. Assess and document students’ learning (Newman, Couturier & Scurry,

2004).”

The design of the entrepreneurial course that will be proposed would integrate those

guiding principles.

Rationale

Capstone projects are designed to foster students’ performance and learning

experiences. The pedagogical environment is designed to support experiential learning

and innovation pedagogy. In support of the study’s findings, business plans capstones are

appropriate learning experiences that connect students with real life problems, develop

their critical thinking, and ability to challenge social issues through innovation and

creativity. Research also revealed that learning through project capstones is group-based
 92
and socially oriented, which means that students will learn about the project using

collaboration and networking with peers and professionals. Capstone projects are

recognized to offer a better articulation with the subject’s courses of the curriculum and

interdisciplinary. Therefore students could better integrate functional knowledge learned

in class with real problem solving issues that might include a business or a social venture.

In perfect alignment with research findings, scholars have recommended two sets of

outcomes to be used as a foundation for entrepreneurial curriculum building. The first set

of outcomes focuses on personal development of the students. They are as follows:

1. Knowledge of the characteristics of entrepreneurial mind-set

2. Effectively collaborate in team work

3. Apply critical and innovative thinking to real life issues

4. Effectively communicate to persuade the client

5. Commitment and resistance to failure

6. Demonstrate civic engagement

7. Develop autonomy and initiative

The second set of outcomes focuses on the knowledge and skills required to run

business or engage into a community to service venture. They are as follows:

1. Identifying and evaluating new opportunities

2. Marketing the concept

3. Analysis of the financial and funding requirements

4. Developing entry strategies

 93
Today scholars’ attention is focused on the issue of students’ learning and

faculty’s teaching methods to promote student innovation and creativity. In The Future of

Higher Education, the authors outlined the impact of the market and competition on

higher education (Newman et al., 2004). Therefore, colleges and universities must adapt

to their changing environment by maneuvering these three institutional processes:

autonomy and accountability, responsibility for student learning, and access and

achievement.

Morocco is a developing country that has initiated economic reforms to encourage

free entrepreneurship to solve socioeconomic problems including job and wealth

creation. Besides, the job market is highly competitive and demands qualified workers

with the following distinctive skill sets: critical thinking, strong oral communication, and

problem solving capabilities. Colleges and universities respond to these needs by

constructing a learning-centered curriculum to contribute to the establishment of a real

culture of quality (Newman et al., 2004). The importance of this concept of quality ties to

its reliance on learning outcomes that are articulated in the curriculum and measured by

assessment processes (Newman et al., 2004).

I have found it useful to work on UIC’s curriculum to revitalize a learning-

oriented enterprise aiming at ensuring multidisciplinary connections among faculty and

academic departments and promoting students’ entrepreneurial skills. In this respect, I

suggested a new entrepreneurial experience-based curriculum with effective underlying

learning results, which will serve further as an input to assessment and accountability

outcomes. In fact, some U.S. accrediting bodies including the Western Association of
 94
Schools and Colleges, the Higher Learning Commission, and the Southern Association of

Colleges and Schools, commonly adopt approaches based on learning outcomes and

focus on the improvement of learning (Bardo, 2009). From a student perspective, project-

based capstones are recognized to motivate learners (Pilskalns, 2009)

The Review of Literature

The literature review provides support for reported findings from the current

qualitative study, describes the background and framework for curricular changes, and

makes the recommendation for the development of a new learning program. I searched

for articles using GoogleScholar electronic databases and educational databases available

at the Walden University library. I used the following Booleans and search terms to

conduct this study: entrepreneurial curriculum, entrepreneurship curriculum, curriculum

design, entrepreneurial design, capstone projects, and business plans capstone projects.

The literature review focused on entrepreneurial competencies, curriculum design,

learning assessment, and experiential learning delivery.

Entrepreneurial Competencies

The literature review supported the findings of the study that revealed strong

students’ awareness about the impact of entrepreneurial learning on their personal

development and professional achievement. Research on undergraduate education

programs supported the fact that students having taken entrepreneurial courses turned

toward the choice of employment instead of launching their own business ventures. This

is based on the evidence that entrepreneurship activities start effectively by the 35-54

years olds after a preferable work experience. Therefore scholars have focused their
 95
attention on a set of appropriate measures of entrepreneurial learning success that

overlook traditional business plans or the number of business ventures. New

entrepreneurial learning outcomes should integrate the 21st century skills and

capabilitites that include abilities in problem-solving, innovation and creativity,

autonomy and initiative, critical thinking, adaptability, social responsibility, and

communication and collaboration (Boyles, 2012). These learning outcomes reinforce the

idea that entrepreneurial learning could be the leverage that enables students to develop

their entrepreneurial mind-set and personal development (Abaho, 2013; Boyles, 2012;

Jones & English, 2004; Kinzie 2013; Kleine & Yoder 2011; Sibley & Parmecelee, 2008).

In alignment with the findings of the study, research revealed that linear methods of

teaching and traditional based curriculum do not favor students’ learning of

entrepreneurial attributes nor do they provide insight into entrepreneurial ways to face

uncertainty and complexity in the reality of entrepreneurs (Gibb, 2010).

Entrepreneurial education establishes a challenge to set appropriate outcomes in

terms of what the students are empowered to perform not know. This focus on the

behavioral capacities of students raises the issue of learning as an emotional experience

that stimulates students’ energy to perform (Gibb, 2010). Scholars called for a learning

environment that is supportive of experiential learning, project-based, and action-oriented

teaching style, and conductive to student’s professional achievement and motivation

(Abaho, 2013; Bilgin, Karakury, & Ay, 2015; Gibb, 2010; Jones & English, 2004;

Weadon & Couetil, 2014). The culminating experiences that might be triggered by

entrepreneurial education have become a significant learning outcome adopted by the

 96
Nation Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). Kinzie (2013) stated that culminating

experiences were ranked by students in NSSE as having substantial impact on their

engagement after experienced internships and service learning.

Entrepreneurial Curriculum

In recent years, scholars have shifted their attention from the content of

entrepreneurship curriculum to the way it is delivered and enacted. Boyles (2012)

criticized the declarative characters of entrepreneurship learning in the U.S, which

“typically emphasizes business planning and deemphasizes understanding and

development of entrepreneurial competencies” (p. 42). Scholars have proposed the

integration of innovative educational models in the curricular. These models focus on

student-centered learning principles in which students learn by experience. Hixson,

Paretti, Lesko, and McNair (2013) stated that “rather than a traditional approach centered

on the acquisition of business skills and knowledge through lectures and case studies,

current approaches have shifted to engaging students in authentic, mentored search for

opportunity identification and development” (p. 2).

The professionalization of higher education has been transforming knowledge-

based curriculum to experience-based curriculum in which the goals of learning go

beyond the simple mastery of content in order to assess students observable behaviors as

communicators, problem-solvers, and team leaders. Drawing on Alverno College

leadership in creating performance-based curriculum, Tagg (2003) stated that “the

principle of performance requires that we assess abilities in action, in the kind of

integrated situation in which students will use them in their life beyond campus” (p. 165).
 97
Following the same pattern, scholars have built on Fink’s model of experience integrative

learning design to integrate into the curriculum innovative and experiential learning

methods likely to provide their students with life long learning capabilities (Fallahi et al.,

2009; Huber, 2009; Sibley & Palmelee, 2008) Therefore, an effective entrepreneurial

curriculum should be based on the use of significant and lifelong learning goals grounded

in the experiential and constructivist framework, integration of learning experiences, and

adoption of congruent assessment tools.

The experiential framework underlying entrepreneurial learning ties back to

Edgerton’s (1997) four powerful pedagogies of engagement. They are (a) problem-based

learning, (b) collaborative learning, (c) service learning, and (d) undergraduate research.

These learning experiences have been recognized by scholars to engage students in an

action oriented learning process, integrate knowledge, and transfer it to new real life

applications (Fallahi et al., 2009; Huber, 2009; Sibley & Parmelee, 2008; Tagg, 2003).

Academic leaders should build on those powerful pedagogies to design a comprehensive

and integrative entrepreneurial capstone projects curricula. Gibb (2010) and Kinzie

(2013) outlined the need to embed entrepreneurship in the curriculum in the widely intra

and inter-disciplinary context of sciences, humanities, and art. Therefore, the challenge of

entrepreneurial learning is raised to the shaping of appropriate outcomes and their related

experiential pedagogical process instead of the inputs of the disciplinary knowledge

contents.

Academic leaders should not implement entrepreneurship education as a short

term, one-shot educational effort in the curriculum. They should use entrepreneurial
 98
learning as a strategic leverage for connecting performances among students, faculty and

the community empowering the entire academic institution for taking the responsibility

of learning (Gibb, 2010; Tagg, 2003) and the students for differentiating themselves in

the job market.

Business Plan Capstone Project

Capstone projects are designed to promote the culture of students’ success

because it transfers to them the ownership of solutions they might have found to real

challenging social issues using capabilities of critical thinking, team work, innovation

and creativity, and project management (Kulmala, Luimula, & Roslof, 2014). Kulmala et

al. (2014) confirmed the innovative and experiential characteristics of capstone project

because “it stimulates real-world processes and, thus, supports collaboration between

education and working life. Projects strengthen student’s self-direction, intentional and

active learning skills” (p. 3).

Bilgin et al. (2015) defined project-base learning (PBL) as “the students’ study

efforts for a certain period of time to reach a specific goal or result either individually or

in a group through an active participation” (p. 470). Therefore, PBL is used as a strategy

for undergraduate research-based initiatives to find innovative solutions to challenging

social problems. Stanford et al. (2013) stated that capstone projects in engineering majors

integrated substantial service to community projects to connect students to real life

experiences and social change. Accordingly, students take responsibility for their own

learning and work collaboratively with others, which increases their engagement and

motivation (Bilgin et al., 2015). Kinzie (2013) argued that when these learning
 99
experiences are activated in the first year, students could easily develop the connection-

making capabilities that can be cultivated and improved in subsequent years. However,

some scholars still hold a skeptical opinion about the impact of this approach to bring in

significant effect on the enhancement of students’ academic achievement (Ayan, Tabouk

& Ozdemir; Chang & Tseng, as cited in Bilgin et al., 2015).

Dempster, Benfield, and Francis (2012) pointed to the challenges created by the

integration of innovative pedagogies in the curriculum design practice. These include

“inflexibility, lack of regular updating, absence of stakeholder input into designs,

difficulty visualizing the learning experience and little sharing of curriculum ideas or

collaborative design” (p. 136).

The business plan capstone project has been reported to be widely used as an

experiential learning activity for teaching entrepreneurial competencies (Papadopoulos,

Britten, Hatcher, & Rainville, 2013; Wheadon & Couetil, 2014). Business plans utilize

action-learning strategies by incorporating real-world scenarios that empower students to

conduct research, integrate theory and practice, and apply knowledge and skills to solve

problems. This learning strategy is an ideal scenario to be embedded in economic and

sociocultural contexts where the solutions might vary depending on environmental

factors similar to those revealed on Morocco in this study. The business plan could be the

appropriate simulation of creating a business or social venture encompassing the

following: 1) Validation of the service or product opportunity, 2) Analysis of the

financial needs and potential returns, 3) Validation of entry strategies, 4) Definition of the

marketing strategy, 5) Operations, Management, and Implementation plan (Papadopoulos

 100
et al., 2013; Wheadon & Couetil, 2014). Wheadon and Couetil (2014) drew on their

review of the entrepreneurship literature to propose a model where experiential learning

activities are incorporated through the above business plan development stages. They

suggested that entrepreneurship curriculum should be enacted by “having students form

an actual startup, use [business games], participate in behavioral simulation, [conduct

research about the industry], participate in live case activities, and participate in field

trips or watch videos of existing startups” (p. 34).

Assessing Entrepreneurship Learning

In this review I explored the perspectives from which scholars addressed the issue

of the application of assessment practices to entrepreneurship and student-oriented

learning and the resulting challenges of curriculum design (Boyles, 2012; Gibb, 2010;

Kleine & Yoder, 2011; Molloy & Boud, 2013; Olson & Petersen, 2002; Peach,

Mukherjee, & Hornyak, 2007; Rousseau & Nassersharif, 2010; Wheadon & Couetil,

2014). The shift in higher education from an instructional-based to a student-oriented

learning paradigm has occasioned a parallel shift form assessing teacher capabilities to

culminating feedback on student learning.

Accrediting agencies and stakeholders made pressures on academic institution to

align assessment practices with learning outcomes that reflect the entrepreneurial

mindset. Therefore, effective curriculum requires the definition of learning outcomes, the

learning experiences that enact them, and the tools and processes used to assess them

(Boyles, 2012; Gibb, 2010; Yoder & Kleine, 2011). Despsite the popularity of business

plan capstone projects in entrepreneurship learning, they are considered as a means to

 101
attain the entrepreneurial learning outcomes that find expression in the entrepreneurial

mindset and are useful in gaining employment as well as launching a new venture. These

outcomes include among others, integrative learning, critical thinking, problem-solving,

social responsibility, teamwork, and communication. Therefore, it has become possible to

evaluate entrepreneurial learning from diverse measures of success instead of the

traditional indicator represented by the number of venture creations (Boyles, 2012;

Wheadon & Couetil, 2014).

Scholars have rethought assessment from a one direction perspective in which

information is controlled and transmitted by the teacher to the student to a multilateral

one that hold students active and responsible for their learning through peer review and

reflection (Pittaway et al., 2009). While the first mode of evaluation is static

(summative), the second is progressive and continuous (formative), and likely to reflect

the behavioral and reflective perspectives of entrepreneurial learning (Boud & Molloy,

2011; Peterson & Olson, 2002). Pittaway (2009) recommended that summative and

formative approaches to assessment should be exclusive and a mix of both should the

common solution. Entrepreneurial learning should be better supported by performance

assessment instead of traditional exams. With this type of assessment, teachers observe

their students performing a competence and demonstrating their entrepreneurial

capacities (Peterson & Oslon, 2002; Tagg, 2003).

Teachers could create rubrics for various learning outcomes to support dialogue

with and among students to help them increase their awareness about the quality of

learning and facilitate the feedback process to empower students to monitor their own
 102
self-learning assessment (McTighe & O’Connor, 2005; Peterson & Olsen, 2002).

Scholars have designed a variety of assessment tools to evaluate the efficacy of

entrepreneurial capstone projects. Nassercharif and Rousseau (2010) have developed a

comprehensive assessment system through reviewed literature and learning experiences.

A selective presentation of some components of the system include the following:

• Individual weekly progress reports submitted electronically

• Team weekly progress report

• Individual assignments to prepare the team for problem definition and concept

generation (information inquiry; resume preparation and update)

• Individual skills inventory at the beginning of the fall semester

• Mid-semester project presentation, critical review

• Peer evaluation

• End of semester project capstone and end of year project showcase

• Final report of the project (Nassercharif & Rousseau, 2010).

Some scholars reported that business plans have been criticized for offering linear

assessment reality about entrepreneurial learning with a focus on quantitative and

corporate techniques at the expense of personal development (Jones & English, 2004;

Wheadon & Couetil, 2014). Nevertheless, business plan capstone projects associated

with experienced learning strategies to activate them could be the appropriate mix likely

to stimulate entrepreneurial education emphasizing innovation, creativity, and risk taking

in business or social ventures. Therefore, while the traditional parts of the business plan

development activities provide students with business literacy and connections with the
 103
business curriculum, the use of experiential delivery mode exposes students to

entrepreneurial behaviors and attributes, and the assessment provides the feedback

through which the students learn through action and reflection.

Interviews with participants confirmed a gap between the expectations of the

students as graduates and future candidates to employment or self-employment and the

academic learning model activated at UIC. Participants recommended the activation of

the capstone project model into the experiential learning environment to culminate the

entrepreneurial student experience, foster internal collaboration among faculty, and

promote external partnerships. So I took the opportunity to develop a business plan

capstone project integrating experiential learning activities and assessment tools to

develop the entrepreneurial mindset of undergraduate students, increase their affective

attachment to the course and the university, and champion the culture of positive change

at the institutional level (Kesler & Lester, 2009; Wheadon and Couetil, 2014).

Capstone Business Plan Development Course

The best way for UIC to provide evidence that its students are learning is to

design a new learning environment that bring them on the road to achievement. The

university will then gain ownership of the process and take full responsibility for

learning. Current organizations demand workers highly qualified in communication,

problem-solving and integrated reasoning. Like all developing countries, job and public

wealth creation are conditioned by a permanent entrepreneurial effort of the society’s

constituencies, including graduates from colleges and universities.

 104
The entrepreneurship program I intend to propose corresponds to a new academic

program that aims at (a) fostering the entrepreneurial mindsets of students, and (b)

promoting among faculty a new culture of teaching based on experiential and deep

learning approaches. Roles and responsibilities of students will be explored with focus

held on practical learning initiatives and their corresponding assessment tools.

The course will be designed to be offered through a period of 16 weeks with

alternation between students’ presentations of topics of the course and instructors’

presentations of main conceptual course content. Achievement will be measured by the

capacity of students to present an oral defense of the capstone business plan during the

third year of graduation, showing evidence of attaining the learning outcomes of

integrated learning, critical thinking, team work capacity, communication skills, and

creativity and innovation. The learning will be processed, effectively and efficiently

through the curriculum by integrating different business courses including economics,

marketing, finance, human resource management, business law and operations

management. Real-world connections of this learning will be seen in the category of

business projects chosen by the students, which depends on their earlier firsthand

experience with industry research. Therefore, a team of students may be interested in

investigating the estate sector while another tourism.

As large community of future entrepreneurs, teams of students will learn from

each other by exchanging and sharing their knowledge about how they integrate core

business functions and use environmental knowledge for strategic positioning. They will

also develop, as they evolve through semesters of the bachelor degree, strong oral and
 105
communicative skills. The program will first be implemented in the management and

business major and further extended to health and engineering majors. The program will

address the following learning goals: (a) collaborating in team work, (b) communicating

effectively, (c) arguing with critical thinking, (d) solving problems effectively, (e)

realizing an effective business plan. The following experiential activities to be realized by

students will be integrated to the above outcomes: (a) Submission of a resume that

include student’s skill inventory, (b) oral presentation of the entrepreneur’ competencies

supported by an interview with an entrepreneur, (c) Entrepreneurship laboratory hosting

sessions to validate the business plans’ ideas, monitor progress, outline research industry,

and assess final oral defense (d) business game, (e) communication debates, and (f) case

study analysis (See Appendix A).

During the first week of the course, the teacher will explain to the student the

activities they have to realize and the deadlines for assignments submission and

presentation, the learning outcomes to be attained, the added value of pedagogy, and the

course materials available. Students will be expected to realize the activities, individually

and in groups, and be assessed accordingly. Course assignments will include assigned

reading from a required entrepreneurial leadership textbook, discussion of pertinent

management press reviews, and presentation in classroom of assigned case studies. Each

group of students will be expected to give a classroom presentation on a selected

entrepreneurial activity (see Appendix A) and required to write a professional paper

outlining their reflection about their personal development. Following each class session,

teacher and students will hold a plenary debriefing session to share feedback, comment
 106
any concerns about the activity, and improve the process of learning. During week 16,

every student will be expected to record a video presentation about their learning journey,

their capstone projects and the learning outcomes they have achieved. The video will be

expected to present a virtual resume as well as a look, listen, and feel reality of the

students’ personalities to be shared on the social and professional web media. The

purpose of this mixed-mode learning format is to reinforce students’ technological

agency and make the learning process as innovative as the business project itself.

Implementation

Potential Resources and Existing Supports

Resources for the project will include the academia available at UIC, support

from Laureate International Universities, and the government accrediting body. The

majority of faculty I talked with about innovative learning strategies was enthusiastic to

experience the implementation of new student-learning initiatives. Laureate Europe has

been engaged into a change academic agenda aimed at standardizing the curriculum of

the universities belonging to the network around the learning outcome of student

experience (B. Aguila, personal communication, July 6, 2015). Drawing on Laureate

strategic initiative, I was asked during a steering committee meeting to organize an

academic retreat by the end of September 2015 about the implementation of the new

Laureate academic model and the experiential learning activation process at UIC (H.

Mounire, personal communication, July 13, 2015). The top management and marketing

service have supported the initiative because institutional communication will focus on

the added value of entrepreneurial learning offering UIC a sustainable differentiating

 107
leverage. On another hand, the governmental accrediting body allows the academic

leaders to adapt up to 30% of curriculum content to specific learning outcomes the

university wanted to achieve.

Potential Barriers

Planned change ties back to the work of Kurt Lewin on organizational

development (Medley & Akan, 2008). Lewin considered that organizations behave like

human entities in terms of attitudes and behavioral patterns. Therefore, like a human

being, an organization may resist to change (Medley & Akan, 2008). Lewin’s change

model seeks to ensure change success by focusing on the human side of interrelations

(Medley & Akan, 2008). As a large community, UIC is the perfect human environment

where interactions take place among the leadership, students, faculty, staff administration

and shareholders. Therefore, I will chose Lewin’s model because of the behavioral

patterns and attitudes undergirding learning process at UIC and the nature of change I

want to implement on the curriculum.

Based on this model, unfreezing will create in faculty and staff administration a

strong need for change, increasing their commitment to change. During the retreat to be

held by the end of September, I will create urgency to attract the faculty attention to the

necessity of shifting to a student-centered institution by using external pressures on the

institution. Maintaining a traditional-based curriculum with few connections and no

bridge with the professional environment will result in UIC’s failure. Implementing

change on the curriculum and the delivery modes will require convincing faculty about
 108
the benefits to embrace the new learning approach. Incentives, rewards, and promotion

could be some of the processes used to bring faculty to embrace change.

Proposal for Implementation and Timetable

This might be assimilated to the change stage in Lewin’s model. At this stage of

project implementation, faculty members, recognized to be the main organizational actors

in the project, will be engaged into a collaborative process where they will mutually

confront new ideas, attitudes, and behaviors. Faculty will discuss what it takes in terms of

skills to deliver courses likely to promote entrepreneurship learning, what

interdisciplinary links to create in the curriculum, and what learning outcomes to

establish. The organization will sustain the moving step by offering technology support

and managerial structure including assessment, reward, and bonus distribution processes

(Carter, 2008; Medley & Akan, 2008).

By the 15th of September 2015, I will submit the capstone project course to the

provost and the dean of business to seek their approval. The next step will be to present

the capstone business plan project course during the retreat to be held by the 30th

September 2015. Therefore, taking into account the subsequent time it will require before

having approval from the provost and the dean of business, and complete review of the

course content by faculty, the implementation of the business plan capstone project

would be scheduled by the next upcoming academic school year.

Roles and Responsibilities

I will be responsible for the following activities as an academic leader in charge

of leading the implementation of the business plan capstone project:

 109
1. Write the course syllabus (See Appendix A) that outlines the learning

outcomes, the didactic content, the experiential activities, and the assessment

tools.

2. Deliver a professional development seminar to faculty to increase their

awareness about the course and the challenges it entails.

3. Coordinate with the planning manager to find the appropriate student time for

starting the course.

4. Coordinate the evaluation process of the project with respect to the expected

learning outcomes.

5. Assure the project’s alignment with the academic model of Laureate Europe.

Administration will provide the following support for the project:

1. Funding for faculty, training and new hirings.

2. Ensure adaptation of the business curriculum and notice of the accrediting

governmental body.

3. Endorse the date of implementation by informing the constituents of UIC

including students, faculty, parents, the press, and shareholders.

Even if the implementation of the capstone course will be first operationalized in

the business major, the administration should keep engineering and health faculty

connected to the project in the perspective of generalizing implementation to their

respective students. By doing so, the whole university will hold responsibility for

learning.
 110
Project Evaluation

The learning outcomes that reflect the entrepreneurial student are the foundation

of the project evaluation (Klein & Yoder, 2011). Scholars argue that assessment should

be aligned with the learning outcomes that reflect entrepreneurial competencies and

experiential activities, viewed as integral part of the curriculum (Boyles, 2012; Klein &

Yoder, 2012; Petersen & Oslon, 2002). Project-level design involves asking and

answering the following question “how will we cultivate the abilities of our students with

the goal of them achieving proficiency?” (Klein & Yoder, 2012). Rubrics will be chosen

to best assess the students' capacities to attain entrepreneurial learning outcomes.

In its attempts to share best learning practices, the American Association of

Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) developed a set of rubrics that explicit a set of

criteria used for assessing a particular performance. When using rubrics, instructors

accept to give up some of their control over the assessment process and transfer it to the

students who engage in an integrative self-assessment process of learning by doing.

Among the rubrics created by the AAC&U are problem-solving, teamwork, integrative

learning and information literacy, which align with the learning outcomes of the business

capstone project. Because entrepreneurial activities are flexible and unstructured

educational issues, rubrics will provide instructors with the opportunity to negotiate a

common understanding of the skills that should be developed prior to starting an activity

(Klein & Yoder, 2012).

To evaluate the project development, I found the program matrix suggested by

Klein and Yoder useful. It is a visual tool where learning outcomes are positioned as
 111
columns and experiential activities as rows. A symbol is then placed in the interceding

cell to designate the learning activity likely to address the targeted performance. Visual

coverage of learning outcomes by learning activities should be ensured, otherwise

relevant adjustments could be recommended (See Appendix A). The efficacy of the

business plan capstone learning strategy will depend on the evidence students will

accumulate through their educational experiences. Such evidence will serve as data that

will nourish the institutional research activities serving for UIC future international

accreditation agendas.

The data may take the following various forms: a reflection paper written by

students, a video of a group presentation, a capstone project, or a student’s response to a

case study. Assessment of the project will be based on the aggregation of scoring data

within rubrics. By determining the frequency for each rubric row at which proficiency is

evident in the student culmination of works, scoring metrics in the form of percentages

and visual bar charts will offer a dashboard that displays an effective interpretation of the

progress being made on the road of targeted learning outcomes (Klein & Yoder, 2011).

The mining of assessment data will orient decision making efforts towards those learning

outcomes that are underemphasized in the learning process.

During the last week of the program, students will be invited voluntarily to

participate in an electronic survey about their reflections on the experience they have

culminated during the 16 weeks of the term. Students will be asked to answer questions

addressing (a) the extent to which the course content met stated learning outcomes, (b)

whether or not information about activities was presented in a clear and concise way, (c)
 112
the clarity with which assessment processes were outlined, and (e) whether or not

instructors were supportive in offering guidance and feedback. Resulting patterns from

this survey will be submitted to academic leaders to inform future curriculum adjustment.

Implications Including Social Change

The implementation of the entrepreneurial business plan capstone project will

enable student employment and self-employment possibilities in developing countries,

including Morocco. The experiential framework outlined in this project will turn out

students from passive consumers of knowledge to actors of their own learning using

entrepreneurial social skills and competencies. The project aims at fostering the culture of

collaboration among the constituencies of academia. Academic institutions are

implementing collaborative work designs both internally and externally to reap the

benefits of better disciplines integration, synergy across departments and qualitative

communication (Kesar & Lester, 2009). Business plan project implementation at UIC

could trigger internal and external partnerships and collaborations.

Internal Collaboration

Entrepreneurial learning is a multifaceted project based work that requires

synergy across disciplines, including economics, marketing, operations management,

human resources management, and finance. Collaboration between faculty members in

charge of these disciplines will help set up the shared goals and the learning outcomes,

which are necessary to achieve the targeted mission. Faculty will then collectively

negotiate an underlying curriculum to be applied in entrepreneurial learning.

Collaboration is intended to go beyond the business department to deal with health and
 113
engineering departments. The mission to better serve student learning with appropriate

learning environments has to encompass the entire campus paving the way for the

establishment of the collaborative university model (Kezar & Lester 2009).

Because entrepreneurial learning is partly research based, collaboration will not

be limited to interdisciplinary faculty but to other constituencies, including librarians and

technology staff. The learning environment, as formally indicated in the curriculum, is

focused on a team-taught configuration where, faculty, student, librarians, and technology

staff learn together as a community of entrepreneurial mindsets.

The business plan capstone could facilitate an internal collaboration between the

academic affairs, the student association, which could be called junior entrepreneurs’

club, and the marketing department at UIC. While faculty develop the curriculum and

assessment tools, the marketing staff and students’ association members connect with the

community and entrepreneurship agencies in order to communicate internally and

externally showing evidence of students and institutional agency for the service of

society. Students’ resumes will emphasize their agency to bring in positive change

through innovative solutions they defended in their projects.

External Partnership

External collaboration links the universities and colleges to the community and

industrial environments to help them increase their revenues. (Kezar & Lester, 2009).

External stakeholders advocate for a new generation of workforce equipped with

entrepreneurial and innovative skills. With respect to my course project, I will activate a

partnership UIC has already signed with a Moroccan association dedicated to promote
 114
entrepreneurship in schools and universities. INJAZ Al Maghrib is a member of Junior

Achievement with outstanding learning experience and networking relationships. Our

partnership with this association will contribute to the creation of a large community of

future entrepreneurs whereby students on the campus will share their business project

with other students served by Injaz Al Maghrib in other organizational contexts.

The different business plans that will be presented by the students represent a

valuable data warehouse that will consolidate the informational patrimony at UIC. Banks

could be interested in these projects in order to finance some of them. Attijari Wafabank

is a member of the board of directors governing the university. I will suggest establishing

a partnership with the bank aimed at financing part the investment required to launch the

business or social venture on the market.

Conclusion

The analysis of data extracted from the 11 in-depth interviews of participants

supported the need for the development of an experience-based curriculum that will

incorporate a capstone business plan project. Literature review exploring this genre of

educational setting revealed that implementing business plan projects in conjunction with

student-centered activities and appropriate assessment tools yielded skillful and engaged

students. The genre proves effective and innovative in fostering a new culture of

collaboration among the constituencies of academia, interdisciplinary, and institutional

effectiveness.
 115
Section 4: Reflections and Conclusion

Project Strengths

The project aims at improving the effectiveness of learning at UIC using student-

centered learning strategies to develop the entrepreneurial mindset of Moroccan students.

The literature review outline in this study commonly agreed on the benefits of

experiential learning methodologies that reinforce the student agency over her learning.

Therefore, the projects’ strengths ties to key educational issues. First, the project

development is concomittent with recent official recommendations released by the

Higher Council for Education (HCE) focusing on the priority to professionalize higher

education learning. Second, the project derives its legitimacy from the power of data

extracted from key informants and analyzed to provide meaningful knowledge about

effective entrepreneurial learning.

UIC students, academic leaders, and professional leaders outlined their

perspectives about their definition to professional achievement and entrepreneurial

attributes. They all agreed that the actual traditional, lecture-based approach to learning

could not favor entrepreneurial development and appealed for an experiential learning

connected to real-world issues to promote the cultivation of entrepreneurial mindset.

While entrepreneurship-learning literature is substantial in U.S. and Europe, the project

will open a new contextual and cultural perspective on how entrepreneurship is perceived

from the perspective of Moroccan key actors adding a real added value to global

educational practice. Third, the project might present a real incentive to engage faculty

and administration into a meaningful academic change (Eckel & Kezar, 2012).
 116
Entrepreneurial learning is a social phenomenon that enables actors to communicate and

network in a community-based framework where the frontiers of department and courses

disappear paving the way for more collaboration and interdisciplinarity (Boyles, 2012;

Dempster et al., 2012; Gibb, 2010; Hixon et al., 2013). Fourth, the project is aligned with

the Laureate academic model that Laureate decision maker intend to implement in

Europe and Morocco (Mounire, H, personal communication, July 13, 2015).

So the project might benefit from the strategic support and funding resources from

the headquarter company and profit from external synergies the Laureate network could

provide in terms of professors exchanges, use of learning technologies, sharing best

learning practices and experiences, and international collaborations. Fifth, the project will

provide the institution with a sustainable differentiating leverage the student and

marketing of UIC could use to well position their image in the external environment. UIC

students and marketing service will learn to communicate in a meaningful way branding

their capacities to innovate and bring in positive change through their projects capstones

and entrepreneurial cultivation.

Limitations

To ensure rigor, I followed qualitative research strategies outlined by Patton

(1999). Nevertheless, this research is not without limitations. First, the data collection

applied to a local context of UIC and its students. Knowledge generalization could not be

ensured limiting the perspective of the study to the target of gaining insight into the

informant’s experiences with entrepreneurial learning. Second, because the data was

collected from participants, it may be biased to represent an objective perspective of

 117
successful learning. Third, because participants were master’s students, they may have

been reflecting on learning realities that are no longer practiced at UIC at the

undergraduate level.

Recommendations

I recommend that the project capstone would be implemented in the first and

second year of the bachelor’s degree in business, engineering and health majors. So,

implemented service learning and undergraduate research capstones in conjunction with

experiential activities would enable students to take very early the reins of their

achievement. To allow transferability of the results of this research, it would be desirable

to explore entrepreneurial learning problems in other organizational contexts other than

UIC including the European universities that belong to Laureate network. Connecting the

entrepreneurial performances of international students and encouraging collaboration

among the faculty of the Laureate International Universities worldwide will create a

global impact for positive social change.

It will be useful to support the collaborative environment of entrepreneurial

learning by the establishment of an entrepreneurship center. The entrepreneurship center

will centralize the management of academic and planning operations of the project. The

center will federate the contributions of stakeholders including, faculty, staff, librarians,

and technology staff. The development of such experiential unit offers the appropriate

environment for faculty to gain ownership over the curriculum they would have designed

interactively. Faculty will then reinforce their commitment to collaboration (Kezar and

Lester 2009).
 118
The benefit of collaboration requires rethinking the rewards process. The

university will experience new policies to reward faculty suggesting reduction of

teaching course in counterpart for their engagement in interdisciplinary teaching and

advising. New human resources management process of recruiting will be established to

hire faculty on the basis of their acceptance to teach interdisciplinary courses at the

entrepreneurship center (Kezar & Lester, 2009).

Scholarship

The research project enabled me not only to know about but to explore and

discover scholarship. I have learned that before announcing our scholarly voice, one

should listen to other scholars’ voice. In my case, scholarship took me for almost 4 year

of research through writings about education and learning before making my own

assumptions and thesis. Therefore, I could support my thesis and argument about

entrepreneurship learning by evidence extracted and aggregated from the literature. I

learned how to incorporate other scholars’ writings and arguments into my own.

Discovering scholarship was the opportunity for me to discover each stage of my

research planning from the problem definition, to research methodology, to literature

review, to data analysis, till the use of cultivated knowledge to improve the practice of

learning at my university. Scholarship is about interpreting social phenomena using

scientific tools that ensure that a rigorous methodology has been used for collecting data

and ethical standards have been considered to protect participants from any harm or risk

(Merriam, 2009).
 119
I also learned to write scholarly. Citing my sources, minimizing direct quotations

in text citations, paraphrasing, avoiding the use of passive tense, and APA instructions

are among the key learning issues that contributed to the improvement of my scholarly

writing making it simple, sound and professional.

Project Development and Evaluation

The learning journey was rewarding including all the phases of the research

planning: problem definition, identification of research question, the choice of the

appropriate research methodology, the literature review, application for IRB approval,

and data collection and analysis. During the first stages of the project research, I

imagined directions that the project would take relying on my previous professional

experience in teaching and managing academic programs. However, I discovered that

rigor in scientific research required that projects’ genre and direction should be directed

by the behavioral patterns and choices derived out data analysis and supported by key

informants.

The execution of the project planning went smoothly. After obtaining the IRB

approval, I interviewed key participants, audio-taped and transcribed verbatim interviews,

coded themes that informed my research questions, and wrote my case study narrative. It

was the first time in my career I read substantial literature resources to engage in

scientific and rigourous research process using qualitative strategies. It was rewarding to

be aware that a project emerged out of data analysis and supported by the scientific

research community and its implementation could improve the practice of learning at

university settings. I monitored progress of project development by sticking to

 120
achievement milestones outlined in my first semester plan I submitted at the beginning of

each term at Walden University.

Leadership and Change

My project could be the answer to the common question asked by candidates and

parents when they first inquire about educational programs offered at the university: how

do your programs differ from those of your competitors on the education business

market? This question reflects the great extent of student’s awareness of the university’s

competitive role on the market of business education. Therefore, UIC should articulate a

clear mission statement that distinguishes it from its competitors on the basis of learning

added value captured by the learner.

My entrepreneurial capstone project is grounded in the student-centered

framework and emerged out of data collected and analyzed within the context of UIC that

exemplifies a new leading experience in for-profit higher education in Morocco. The

project recommends to incorporate entrepreneurial business capstone project as a

mainstream pedagogy upgrading its status to the curriculum level. Cultivating

entrepreneurial experiences through business plan capstones activated with experiential

learning tools would reinforce the students’ agency to learn and change by doing.

Universities have long been working in silos and departments, impeding effective

collaboration and academic entrepreneurship. Academic leaders should take advantage of

this project to build on collaboration as a model for bringing in internal coordination and

developing a seamless environment (Kezar, 2006). Leadership and teaching have much in

common. Bollman and Gallos (2011) asserted that “Both push the boundaries of personal
 121
growth [beyond the walls of the university] and disrupt existing belief systems and

emotional investments” (p.132). In spite the challenges outlined in this research,

entrepreneurial education should be implemented in the business, engineering and health

curriculum. Entrepreneurial capstone projects will contribute to bring value and connect

students, faculty and university among them and with the real business and social

environments.

Analysis of Self as Scholar, Practitioner, and Project Developer

The doctoral journey at Walden University contributed to the reinforcement of my

professional legitimacy as an academic leader. As a scholar, I learned to listen to other

scholars’ voice before announcing mine. I am finding great pleasure to argue about an

educational issue using evidence from the literature and citing respective sources.

Research is not about seeking the truth. It is about interpreting social phenomena that

researchers investigate using rigorous qualitative or quantitative strategies that ensure

credibility, trustworthiness of data and findings and participants’ integrity and

confidentiality.

As a practitioner, I indulge in using evidence from the literature to support the

innovative approaches I implement in my teaching and leadership to academic programs.

It was my colleagues that proposed me to organize the academic retreat about educational

innovation to be held by the end of September. This is because my argument in favor of

adopting a new performance-based curriculum was supported by benchmarking best

practices in leading American universities that shifted to the student-centered learning

framework. As a doctoral candidate in the Higher Education Leadership major, my

 122
leadership has been evolving to encompass a comprehensive, coherent and connected

reasoning about academic change in the context of environmental, organizational,

resources, and leadership challenges.

As project developer, I learned how to effectively manage a project process

starting from problem definition, to information inquiry, to social collaboration with

UIC’s constituents, to the suggested solutions. Completion of this project was associated

to a real human experience I lived in and out of walls of my university managing real and

tough challenges including sacrificing private life and exceptional arrangements with my

family. I was proud to be capable of proposing a comprehensive business plan capstone

projects to be implemented in curriculum in order to improve the quality of educational

practice at UIC, reinforce the students’ change agency, and connect the university to the

mission of social change.

Project’s Implications and Future Research Direction

Higher education institutions have developed different strategies to use resources,

including assessment, organizational learning, and collaboration to promote their core

learning activities. Research has focused on the process of collaboration and its main

positive impact on reinforcing the capacity of institutions to tie and activate partnerships

and meet the demands of the university’s constituents (Kezar, 2006). Entrepreneurial

business capstone projects activated with experiential and project-based learning are

among innovative educational approaches under the framework of student-centered

paradigm. It is recommended to upgrade the status of entrepreneurial learning

methodology in the formal curriculum of the bachelor degree offered at the university.
 123
This would not occur without challenges. Faculty will require time before buying-in the

project because the learning process entails their giving up some of their control over

learning to the student and tenure privilege. Leadership of the university will be

challenged with the amount of resources that would be deployed to innovative learning

approach of which outcomes are not yet measurable or certain to attain.

The implementation of business capstone project will entail the activation of a

change agenda with implication on student learning, faculty teaching practices and

university mission. Therefore, future research direction could be oriented to explore the

beliefs of faculty toward this change and their perspectives about potential improvements

to include them in future curriculum adjustments or faculty professional development

agendas. Future research could also involve measuring specific skills achieved by

students through the business capstone and the impact internal collaboration will have on

the enhancement and consolidation of proficiency.

Conclusion

Under the pressure of external forces and employers’ demands for qualified

working force, UIC has no choice but to hold full responsibility of students’ learning.

Analysis of data collected from UIC students, academic leaders, and professional leaders

has yielded a meaningful entrepreneurial learning project that is grounded in the student-

centered framework. The incorporation of this entrepreneurial project into the curriculum

of the university will reinforce the agency of UIC students, and empower them with

entrepreneurial competencies. Upgrading the status of the comprehensive business plan

capstone will not happen without challenges. However, faculty and administration could
 124
take the opportunity of the flexible and unstructured nature of entrepreneurial projects to

engage into a collaborative model of work and exemplify themselves as entrepreneurial

mindsets.

Participants recommended the implementation of capstone project model into the

experiential learning environment to culminate entrepreneurial student experiences, foster

internal collaboration among faculty, and promote external partnerships. I took the

opportunity to develop a business plan capstone projects integrating experiential learning

activities and assessment tools to develop the entrepreneurial mindset of undergraduate

students, increase their emotional attachment to the course and the university, and

champion the culture of positive change at the institutional level. Universities should use

entrepreneurial learning as a strategic leverage for connecting performances among

students, faculty and the community empowering the entire academic institution for

taking the responsibility of learning and the students for differentiating themselves in the

job market. I invite the reader imagine what could be the impact if all students belonging

to the Laureate international network managed to connect their entrepreneurial

performances on a global scale.

 125
References

Abaho, E. (2013). Entrepreneurial curriculum as an antecedent to entrepreneurial value in

Uganda: A SEM model, Global Advanced Research Journal of Management and

Business Studies, 2(2), 85-92.

Argyris, C. (1991). Teaching smart people how to learn. Harvard Business Review, 69(3),

99-109.

Ayegou, J., Mahrek, F., Rajraji, A., & Talbi, M. (2013). Self-employment: Toward

making entrepreneurship teaching more beneficial at the Moroccan university.

Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.01.774,

3410-3416

Bagheri, A., & Pihie, Z. A. (2011). Entrepreneurial leadership: Towards a model for

learning and development. Human Resource Development International, 14(4),

447-463.

Bahji, S. B., Lefdaoui, Y., & El Alami. (2013). Enhancing motivation and engagement: A

top-down approach for the design of a learning experience according to the S2P-

LM. Retrieved from http//dx.doi.org/10.3991/ijet.v8i6.2955

Bardo, J. (2009). The impact of changing climate for accreditation on the individual

college or university: Five trends and their implication. New Directions for

Higher Education, 145, 47–58. doidot: 10.1002/he.334

Barefoot, B. O., Gardner, J. N., Cutright, M., Morris, L. V., Schroeder, C.C., Schwartz,

S.W., … Swing, R. L. (2005). Achieving and sustaining institutional excellence

for the first year of college. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

 126
Barr, R. B., & Tagg, J. (1995). From teaching to learning-a new paradigm for

undergraduate education. Change, 27(6), 12-25.

Bilgin, I., Karakuyu, Y., Ay, Y. (2015). The effects of project based learning on

undergraduate students’ achievement and self-efficacy beliefs towards science

teaching. Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education,

11(3), 469-477.

Bogdan, R. C., & Biklen, S. K. (2007). Qualitative research for education: An

introduction to theories and methods (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Bolman, L. G., & Gallos, J. V. (2011). Reframing academic leadership. San Francisco,

CA: Wiley, Jossey-Bass.

Bosch, W., Hester, J., MacEntee, V., MacKenzie, J., Morey, T., Nichols, J., … Young, R.

(2008). Innovative Higher Education, 33(83), doi:10.1007/s10755-008-9072-1

Botha, M. (2010). A project-based learning approach as a method of teaching

entrepreneurship to a large group of undergraduate students in South Africa.

Education as Change, 14(2), 213-232.

Boud, D., & Molloy, E. (2013). Rethinking models of feedbacks for learning: The

challenge of design, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 38(6), 698-

712.

Boussetta, M. (2003). Formation à la culture entrepreneuriale: L’expérience de l’Ecole

Doctorale de Gestion de l’Université de Rabat Agdal au Maroc. Retrieved from

http://web.hec.ca/airepme/images/File/agadir/Boussetta%20D.pdf
 127
Bowen, G. A. (2009). Document analysis as a qualitative research method. Qualitative

Research Journal, 9(2), 27 – 40.

Boyles, T. (2012). 21st century knowledge, skills, and abilities and entrepreneurial

competencies: A model for undergraduate entrepreneurship education, Journal of

Entrepreneurship Education, 15, 41-55.

Carter, C. (2008). Successful change requires more than change management. The

Journal for Quality & Participation, 20–23.

Creswell, J. W. (2012). Educational research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating

quantitative and qualitative research (Laureate custom ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson

Education, Inc.

Creswell, J. W., Hanson, W. E., Plano, V. C., & Morales, A. (2007). Qualitative research

designs: Selection and implementation. The Counseling Psychologist, 35(2), 236-

264. doi:10.1177/0011000006287390

Creswell, J. W., & Miller, D. L. (2000). Determining validity in qualitative inquiry.

Theory into practice, 39(3), 124-130.

Darke, P., Shanks, G., & Broadent, M. (1998). Successfully completing case study

research: combining rigor, relevance and pragmatism, Information Systems

Journal, 8(4), 273-289.

 128
Debbarh, A. (2011). Expérience marocaine: Amélioration de l’enseignement supérieur et

développement du capital humain. Retrieved from

http://www.africanbrains.net/pdfs/Mr%20Abdelhafid%20Debbarh%20-

%20Secretary%20General,%20Department%20of%20Higher%20Education,%20

Government%20of%20Morocco.pdf

Dempster, J., Benfield, G., & Francis, R. (2012). An academic development model for

fostering innovation and sharing in curriculum design, Innovation in Education

and Teaching International, 49(2), 135-147.

Eckel, P & Kezar, A. (2012). Taking the reins: Institutional transformation in higher

education. Rowman & Littlefield.

Edgarton, R. 1997. Education white paper. Retrieved from : www.faculty.umb.edu.

Ehiyazaryan, E., & Barraclough, N. (2009). Enhancing employability: integrating real

world experience in the curriculum. Education + Training, 51(4), 292-308.

doi:10.1108/00400910964575

Eickoff, M. (2008). Entrepreneurial thinking and action–an educational responsibility for

Europe. European Journal of Vocational Training, 3(45), 6-31.

Eze, J. F., & Nwali, A. C. (2012). Capacity building for entrepreneurship education: The

challenge for the developing nations. American Journal of Business Education,

5(4), 401-408.
 129
Fallahi, C., Levine, L., Senft, J., Tessier, J., Watson, C., & Wood, R. (2009). Using

Fink’s integrated course design: How a book changed our students’ learning, our

university, and ourselves. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, DOI:

10.1002/tl.363

Fargion, S., Gevorgianiene, V., & Lievens, P. (2011). Developing entrepreneurship in

social work through international education. Reflections on a European intensive

programme. Social Work Education, 30(8), 964-980.

Fear, F., Doberneck, D., Robinson, C., Fear, K., Barr, R., Berg, H., … Petrulis, R.

(2003). Meaning making and “The learning paradigm”: A provocative idea in

practice. Innovative Higher Education, 27(3), 151-168.

Gibb, A. (2010). Concepts into practice: Meeting the challenge of development of

entrepreneurship educators around an innovative paradigm. The case of the

International Entrepreneurship Educators’ Programme (IEEP), International

Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, 17(2), 146-165.

Gutiérrez, A. R., & Guerrero, A. B. (2012). Education and entrepreneurship: Educating in

the new competence of autonomy and personal initiative. The International

Journal of Learning, 18(8), 237-247.

Guven, S. (2013). Determining vocational education undergraduate students’ educational

needs for entrepreneurship; International journal of academic research, 5(3),

doi:10.7813/2075-4124.2013/5-3/B.57, 379-383
 130
Harkema, S. J., & Schout, H. (2008). Incorporating student-centered learning in

innovation and entrepreneurship education. European Journal of Education,

43(4), 513-526

Hixon, C., Paretti, M., Lesko, J., & McNair, L. (2013). Course development and

sequencing for interdisciplinary entrepreneurship education. Retrieved from

http://nciia.org/sites/default/files/features/conference/2013/papers/hixson.pdf

Hubbard, G. (2012). Discovering constructivism: How a project-oriented activity-based

media production course effectively employed constructivist teaching principles.

Journal of Media Literacy Education, 4(2), 159-166.

Huber, M. (2009). Shoeboxes and taxes: Integrated course design unleashes new

creativity for a veteran teacher. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, doi:

10.1002/tl.359

Jones, B., & Irelade, N. (2010). Viewpoint enterprise education as pedagogy. Education

+ Training, 52(1), 7-19. doi:10.1108/00400911011017654

Jones, C., & English, J. (2004). A comtemporary approach to entrepreneurship learning,

Education + Training, 46(8/9), 416-423.

Kezar, A. (2006). Redesigning for collaboration in learning initiatives: An examination of

four highly collaborative campuses. Journal of Higher Education, 77(5), 804-838.

Kezar, A. J. & Lester. J. (2009). Organizing higher education for collaboration: A guide

for campus leaders. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Kinzie, J. (2013). Taking stock of capstones and integrative learning. Retrieved from

https://www.aacu.org/peerreview/2013/fall/kinzie
 131
Kleine, R., & Yoder, J. (2011). Operationalizing and assessing the entrepreneurial

mindset: A rubric based approach. Journal of Engineering Entrepreneurship,

2(2), 57-79.

Kolb, D. (1984). Experiential learning: experience as the source of learning and

development. Retrieved from: http:

//www.learningfromexprience.com/images/uploads/process-of-experiential-

learning.pdf

Komulainen, K., Naskali, P., Korhonen, M., & Foley, S. K. (2011). Internal

entrepreneurship: A Trojan horse of the neoliberal governance of education?

Finnish pre-and in-service teachers’ implementation of and resistance towards

entrepreneurship education. Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, 9(1),

341-374.

Koubaa, S., & Sahibeddine, A. (2012). L’intention entrepreneuriale des étudiants au

Maroc: Une analyse PLS de la méthode des équations. Retrieved from

http://web.hec.ca/airepme/images/File/2012/A18-

Koubaa%20et%20Sahib%20Eddine-CIFEPME2012.pdf

Krueger, F. N. (2007). What lies beneath? The experiential essence of entrepreneurial

thinking. Entrepreneurship theory and practice, 31(1), doi:10.1111/j.1540-

6520.2007.00166.x, 123-138

Kulmala, R., Luimula, M., & Roslof, J. (2014). Capstone innovation project –

pedagogical model and methods. Retrieved from

http://nciia.org/sites/default/files/features/conference/2013/papers/hixson.pdf
 132
Leino, J. A. (2011). The implementation of entrepreneurship education through

curriculum reform in Finnish comprehensive schools. Journal of Curriculum

Studies, 43(1), 69-85.

Liebenberg, L., & Mathews, H. E. (2010). Integrating innovation skills in an introductory

engineering desing-build course. International Journal of Technology and Design

Education, 93-113. doi:10.1007/s10798-010-9137-1

Lodico, M., Spaulding, D., & Voegtle., K. (2010). Methods in educational research. John

Wiley & Sons, Inc. Laureate.

Mars, M., & Metcalfe, A. (2009). Contemporary issues in the entrepreneurial academy.

ASHE Higher Education Report, 34(5), 37–61. Retrieved from the Walden

Library using the Education Research Complete database.

Mars, M. M., & Aguilar, C. R. (2010). Academic entrepreneurship (re)defined:

Significance and implications for the scholarship of higher education. Higher

Education, 59, doi:10.1007/s10734-009-9258-1

Mars, M. M., & Ginter, B. M. (2012). Academic innovation and autonomy: An

exploration of entrepreneurship education within American community colleges

and the academic capitalist context. Community College Review.

doi:10.1177/0091552111436209

Mars, M. M., & Rhoades, G. (2012). Socially oriented student entrepreneurship: A study

of student change agency in the academic capitalism. The Journal of Higher

Education. 83(3), 435-459.

 133
Martin, C., Surikova, S., Pīgozne, T., & Maslo, I. (2011). Needs and perspectives in

developing the students' entrepreneurship competences: A case study from

CReBUS research project. Journal of Educational Sciences, 1(31), 38-49.

Mayhew, J. M., Simonoff, S. J., Baumol, J. W., Wiesenfelf, M. B., & Klein, W. M.

(2011). Exploring innovative entrepreneurship and its ties to higher educational

experiences. doi:10.1007/s11162-012-9258-3, 47-55

McTighe, J., & O'Connor, K. (2005). Seven practices for effective learning. Educational

Leadership, 63(3), 10-17.

Medley, B., & Akan, O. (2008). Creating positive change in community organizations A

case for rediscovering Lewin. Nonprofit management & leadership, 18(4), 2008.

DOI:10.0002/nml.199

Merriam, S. B. (2009). Qualitative research: A guide to design and implementation. CA:

Jossey-Bass.

Moalosi, R., Molokwane, S., & Mothibedi, G. (2012). Using a design-oriented project to

attain graduate attributes. Design and Technology Education, 17(1), 30-43

Monaghan, C. (2011). Communities of practice: A learning strategy for management

education. Journal of Management Education, 35(3), 428-453.

doi:10.1177/1052562910387536

Mrabi. M. A. (2013, August 22). Discours Royal: Le gouvernement critiqué sur

l’enseignement. L’Economiste. Retrieved from

http://www.leconomiste.com/article/909972-discours-royalle-gouvernement-

critiqu-sur-l-enseignement
 134
Nassersharif, B., & Rousseau, C. (2010). Best practices in assessing capstone design

projects. Retrieved from

http://www.capstoneconf.org/resources/2010%20Proceedings/Papers/Nassersharif

_Rousseau.pdf

Nejad, B. A., Abbaszadeh, M. S., Hassani, M., & Bernousi, I. (2012). Study of the

entrepreneurship in universities as learning organization based on Senge’s model.

International Education Studies, 5(1), 67-77.

Newman, F., Couturier, L., & Scurry, J. (2004). The future of higher education:

Rhetoric reality, and the risks of the market. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

O’Banion, T. (2000, August/September). An inventory for learning-centered colleges.

Community College Journal, 71(1), 14–23.

O’Banion, T., & Wilson, C. (2010). Focus on learning: The core mission of higher

education. Retrieved from http://www.jsu.edu/redballoon/docs/1O_Banion-

Focus_on_Learning_Final.pdf

Oleforo, N. A., Oko, D. E., & Akpan, E. G. (2013). Entrepreneurship training programme

in universities and graduates’ productivity in south-South Nigeria. The

International Educational Studies, 6(7), 260-266.

Papadopoulos, A., Britten, N., Hatcher, M., & Rainville, K. (Using business plan

development as a capstone project for MPH programs in Canada: Validation

through the student perspective. Journal of Community Health, 38,

DOI:10.1007/s10900-013-9698-5, 791-798.
 135
Parry, Z., & Baird, C. (2012). Removing the walls and textbook from the classroom: A

case study of a creative entrepreneurship class of multinational students in South

Korea. Journal of Learning Design, 5(2), 25-37.

Patton, Q. M. (1999). Enhancing the Quality and Credibility of Qualitative Analysis.

Health Services Research, 34(5), 1189-1208.

Peach, B., Mukherjee, A., & Hornyak, M. (2007). Assessing critical thinking: A college’s

journey and lessions learned, Journal of Education of Business. July/August.

Petersen, A., & Olson, J. (2002). Assessing student learning. Retrieved from

https://cupscience.pbworks.com/f/Assessing%20Student%20Learning%20NSTA.

pdf

Pilskalns, O. (2009). An entrepreneurial approach to project-based courses. Computer

Science Education, 19(3), DOI:10.1080/08993400903255234, 193-204

Pittaway, L,. Hannon, P. Gibb, A., & Thompson, J. (2009). Assessment practice in

enterprise education, International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior &

Research, DOI: 10.1108/13552550910934468

Rae, D. (2007). Connecting enterprise and graduate employability. Challenges to the

higher education culture and curriculum? Education + Training, 49(8/9),

doi:10.1108/00400910710834049, 605-619

Rae, D. (2010). Universities and enterprise education: Responding to the challenges of

the new era. Journal of small business and enterprise development, 17(4).

doi:10.1108/14626001011088741, 591-606
 136
Rae, D., & Carswell, M. (2000). Towards a conceptual understanding of entrepreneurial

learning. Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, 8(2), 150-158.

Sardeshmukh, R., & Nelson, M. R. (2011). Educating for an entrepreneurial career:

Developing opportunity-recognition ability. Australian Journal of Career

Development, 20(3), 47-55.

Schilling, J., & Klamma, R. (2010). The difficult bridge between university and industry:

A case study in computer science teaching. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher

Education, 35(4), 367-380.

Sewell, P., & Pool, L. D. (2010). Moving from conceptual ambiguity to operational

clarity. Employability, enterprise and entrepreneurship in higher education.

Education+Training, 52(1), 89-94, doi:10.1108/00400911011017708

Stanfor, S., Benson, L., Alluri, P., Martin, W., Klotz, L.,…& Schiff, S. (2013).

Evaluating student and faculty outcomes for a real-world capstone project with

sustainability considerations. Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering

Education & Practice, 139(2), 123-133.

Tagg, J. (2003). The learning paradigm college. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Texte intégral. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.lemag.ma/Texte-integral-du-discours-

du-Roi-Mohammed-VI-du-20-aout_a74273.html

Walsh, A. (2007). An exploration of Bigg’s constructive alignment in the context of

work-based learning. Assessment for Evaluation in Higher Education, 32(1), 79-

87.
 137
Wheadon, J., & Couetil, N. (2014). Business plan development activities as a pedagogical

tool in entrepreneurship education, Journal of Engineering Entrepreneurship, 5(1),

31-48.

Zammar, R., & Abdelbaki, N. (2012). L’université marocaine et la problématique de

l’entrepreneuriat innovant. Retrieved from

https://emnet.univie.ac.at/uploads/media/Zammar__Abdelbaki_01.pdf

Zimmerman, J. (2012). Using business plans for teaching entrepreneurship. American

Journal of Business of Education, 5(6), 727-742.

Zuabi, V.(2012). Building higher education partnerships in the Maghreb. Retrieved from

http://www.aspeninstitute.org/publications/pnb-napeo-higher-education-

partnerships-maghreb-2012
 138
Appendix A: Project

Capstone Business Plan Project Syllabus

College of Management and Business Administration

Undergraduate Program

Fifth Semester of the Bachelor Degree in Business Administration

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This course intent to immerse third year level business students into an experiential
learning environment in order to gain the entrepreneurial mindset recognized to be the
prerequisite for graduates’ success for employment or self-employment. Emphasis is
placed on the development of personal skills and professional key competencies to
operate as a successful manager or future entrepreneur. The capstone business plan
project helps students capitalize on their functional business courses and integrate
knowledge for real world situations use. Students are put into simulated real life situation
to develop their capacities of problem solving, communication, teamwork, and
innovation for community service.

COURSE CREDIT

This course is 5,00 credit unit. The course corresponds to the equivalent of 48 hours face
to face teaching effort in alignment with the standards of the ministry of higher
education. Each course session is delivered on a basis of 3 hours unit.

PLACEMENT
This course is offered the fifth semester out of the six semesters required for the
completion of the Bachelor degree in business administration.

COURSE OBJECTIVES

Upon successful completion of this course, the student should be able to:

1. Know about the characteristics of entrepreneurial mind-set

2. Effectively collaborate in teamwork
3. Apply critical and innovative thinking to real life issues
4. Effectively communicate to persuade the client
5. Commit and resist to failure
6. Demonstrate civic engagement
 139
7. Develop autonomy and initiative
8. Identify and evaluate new opportunities
9. Market the concept
10. Analyze the financial and funding requirements
11. Develop entry strategies

PEDAGOGY

The learning strategy is grounded into the experiential learning that reinforces learning by
doing. The student will “do” as follows:
1. Students should carefully read the assignment presented in class; it will consist
either of a problem to resolve or a practical work to submit.
2. Students should prepares themselves to effectively participate in classroom
activities by using the learning resources at their disposal; these might include, a)
documents already distributed by the instructor, b) resulting exchanges among
students, c) others sources of information students have extracted on their own
initiatives.
3. Students should submit a written reflection paper on their respective learning and,
in other cases, team oral presentations.

Classes should not contain more than 25 students expected to be divided into 5 groups of
5 students. Class sessions will be processed as follows:
1. Introduction, answers to questions and review of key concepts disclosed during
the preceding session
2. Comments on past activities, ongoing, or those to be realized
3. Activities presentations by students
4. Presentation by the instructor of new concepts
5. Instructor and students’ feedback about learning progress
6. Extensive group work outside of class is an essential component of this course.
7. Appropriate means essential for the functioning and management of the team
energy are recommended (emails, phone, virtual meetings, chat forums…)

ASSESSEMENT

Assessment in this course is based on two performance categories: 1) individual (50%),

and 2) team (50%).
1. Individual performance
a. Written papers (35 points)
 A resume presenting a self-assessment of the key competencies and the
targeted learning goals (5 points)
 A review of a team presentation (10 points)
 A critical review of a written paper (10 points)
 A reflection paper on the students’ learning at the end of the program (10
points)
 140
b. Oral reflection (10 points)
 Video recorded oral presentation of students’ resume and achievements
c. Personal contribution to the team learning effort (5 points)
 Peer evaluation of the student’s contribution to her respective teamwork.
2. Team performance
a. Oral presentations (50 points)
 An oral presentation about one of the following themes (10 points):
1. Who is the entrepreneur?
2. What are the key competencies of successful entrepreneur?
 Introductory presentation of the business project (10 points). This initial
presentation takes place in private with instructors without the presence of
the other teams of the class.
 Oral presentation of the capstone business plan project in public with the
presence of students, faculty, and professional visitors (20 points).
b. Written version of the capstone project submitted after oral public defense (10
points).

GRADING POLICY

95% - 100% = A
92% - 94% = A-
88% - 91% = B+
85% - 87% = B
82% - 84% = B-
76% - 78% = C
71% - 75% = C-
68% - 70% = D+
63% - 67% = D

The grading policy is flexible and adaptable to the students’ profile. Therefore instructors
are recommended to review the final distribution of assessment results to sort out
significant groups. The first group, representing exceptional results, might deserve the
grade A; the second group whose result has been assessed as excellent might deserve the
grade A- and so on.

RECOMMENDED TEXT MATERIALS and VIDEOS

Canadian Western Bank. How to write a business plan. Retrieved from

https://www.cwbank.com/how+to+write+a+business+plan+2014+pdf

Sandeep Krishnamurthy. How to make a successful presentation. Retrieved from

https://faculty.washington.edu/sandeep/d/AEOMISS.pdf
 141
STREAMING VIDEOS

Changing Education Paradigms. Retrieved from

http://elimindset.com/resource/changing-education-paradigms/

Effective Team Work & Collaboration. Retrieved from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsndhCQ5hRY

Where Good Ideas Come From. Retrieved from http://elimindset.com/resource/where-

good-ideas-come-from-by-steven-johnson/
 142
Learning Activities and Assignments

Schedule of Learning Activities and Main Assignments

Week Activities

Week 1 Submission of the student’s resume

Week 2  Oral presentation “who is the entrepreneur?” Group (1

and 2)

 Learning semester starting plan (all)

Week 3  Submission of team contracts

 Brainstorm and validate the innovative ideas for the

business plan projects (Groups to be assigned)

Week 4  Guest entrepreneur sharing experience with students or

Organize a trip for students to visit a renowned

entrepreneur to share his/her experiences

 Submit action plan of the project proposal

Week 5  Oral presentation “what are the key competencies of a

successful entrepreneurs?” (Groups to be assigned)

 Executing a role play and discussion afterwards students

should come out with the advantages and disadvantages

of employment and self employment.

 Individual paper reflection about the presentation (all

Groups)
 143
Week 6  Business game. All groups compete in a virtual market

to claim the position of leadership on a competitive

market (3 decisions out of 6)

Week 7 Business game (follow up). All groups compete in a virtual

market for leadership position (3 remaining decisions)

Week 8  Oral presentation “business game team winner’s final

business report”.

 Oral presentations “ business game final reports” (all

remaining groups)

 Individual paper reflection about the presentation (Group

to be assigned)

Week 9  Oral presentation. Initial business plan presentation (all

groups)

 Written final business report of the game (all groups)

Week 10 Capstone business plan laboratory (all groups)

Week 11 Capstone business plan laboratory (all groups)

Week 12 Final presentation of business plan projects (Group 1 and 2)

Week 13 Final presentation of business plan projects (Group 3, 4, and 5)

Week 14 Final reports of the capstone business plans

Week 15  Individual oral presentations “learning reflection”

 Peer evaluation
 144
Week 16  Video presentation of individual resume and

achievements.

 Quality learning survey

Guidelines of the Course Content

WEEK 1: Introduction

 Introducing the students taking the course and the instructor

 Introducing the learning outcomes of the capstone business plan projects

grounded in the entrepreneurship mission statement of the course

 Presentation by the instructor of the syllabus of the course

 Open dialogue and discussion about the learning strategy used in the course

 Introducing the first assignment and rubrics including

 Starting semester learning individual plan

 Rubrics of written and oral communication

 Business plan project capstone

Required Reading

Reading the document “Developing an effective team”

Streaming Video: “Changing Education Paradigms”

WEEK 2: Team Performance

 Review of prior session

 Discussions about the learning style and team cohesion

 145
 Formation of teams for the business plan projects. Groups will be created at

random because, in real life professional world, individuals do not chose their

group mates.

 Discussions and activities about the criteria for successful teams and members’

coordination on the basis of a team contract

 Introducing the business plan project

 How to prepare an effective business plan

 Present details about the teams’ business plan portfolio assignments

Streaming Video: Effective Team Work & Collaboration

Homework for Next Time:

 Finalize team contracts

 Explore projects ideas

 Finalize the individual semester learning plan

 Finalize the oral presentation for teams on schedule

WEEK 3: Brainstorm and Validate Business Projects

By brainstorming and discussion, lead students to examine the following:

 Review of prior session

 The opportunity of the venture (the idea, the concept of the project)

 The market industry (who are the clients? The needs it responds to, the size and

potential of the potential market, sales forecasts and market shares, and so on)

 The competitors (who are they; their strengths and weaknesses; entry barriers…)
 146
 The competitive advantage (the value added to the client that competitors do not

offer to position the business on the market)

 The social change occasioned by the project (how does innovation serve the

welfare of the community)

 Introducing details about the action plan of the project business plan. The

proposal should be submitted to the instructor of the course.

 Name of Business: (Use generic descriptor)

 One-Sentence Description:

 Industry/Competition:

 Market/Segments: (Exactly who are your target customers?)

 Unmet or Underserved Needs: (What is the need or concern of your target

customers that is not being adequately met by current offerings on the

market?)

 Value Proposition/Solution: (Describe the product and/or service that your

business will produce in order to address your customer’s unmet need.)

 Competitive Advantage/ Differentiation: (What makes your solution notably

better than currently available offerings? Why would your target customers

switch from their current way of doing things?)

 Business Model: (How will you make money? How will you distribute/sell?)

 Risk Assessment: (What is the likelihood of the business encountering

technical or other risks? What are possible responses?)

 147
 Team Member Roles and legal identity: (Name the team members and briefly

describe their roles, their relevant backgrounds and legal responsibility.)

 Streaming Video: “Where Good Ideas Come From” by Steven Johnson

WEEK 4: In the Shoes of an Entrepreneur

 Students engaged in experiential learning learn by sharing and evolving ideas in

the community, hearing from guest entrepreneurs who share their stories of

persistence, success, and failure, and making relationships and building networks

that can support them through college and beyond.

 According to the criteria of availability and scheduling of guest speakers,

instructors might organize a trip visit to entrepreneurs or professional associations

in charge of promoting the entrepreneurial mindset.

 Students should individually submit a reflection paper answering the following

questions: 1) what is the difference between a business person and an

entrepreneur? 2) summarize the key learning points of the event? and, 3) identify

entrepreneurial attributes in students?

Week 5: The Logic of Argumentation and Problem Solving

 Students are expected to defend in public their positions and points of views.

They are expected to convince the audience on the basis of evidence grounded in

information research.
 148
 Students will be asked to engage into a debate about the topic of employment

against self-employment. Instructors will hold a role playing where half of the

class play in favor of wage employment and the other defending self-employment.

 Students will prove their capacities of inquiring, sensing, and organizing

information in support of their solutions.

 Students should submit individually, the following week, a written paper where

they articulate with evidence their standing position about the topic being debated.

Homework for WEEK 5:

 Prepare for the debate about whether employment or self-employment is

the best solution to the problem of joblessness in Morocco.

 Assign role playing to teams

WEEK 6 and 7: Business Game

 Business game is the experiential activity that puts groups of students in a virtual

competition to claim a leadership position in competitive virtual market. Students

are supposed to live a simulated business experience where they could

emotionally be confronted to success or failure. Besides, the game highlights the

continuous and dynamic aspect of management, the integration of acquired

knowledge, and the complexity of the decision on both the technical and human

sides. It must thus allow to test and promote both the abilities of participants in

decision-making on an individual and collective side.

 149
 Business decisions might be taken through the two weeks. It is left to the

appreciation of instructors to use the appropriate business game according to

availability or budget constraints.

 The share price of the virtual company is the clear cut criterion that identifies the

winner. Other performance indicators also help in choosing the winner including

the operating income, the notoriety, the market share, and capital.

 All groups should write and orally defend their final business report and reflect on

the key learning points of this experience.

WEEK 8: Perform Successful Presentations

 Review of prior session

 Oral presentations of final business game reports. Every group has 10 minutes to

defend its position followed by 5 minutes of questions.

 Peer evaluation after each presentation

 Discussions about presentation should focus on:

 Impressive aspects

 Aspects requiring adjustments

 The approach used in structuring the presentation

 Introducing the recommended methodology to design a successful presentation.

WEEK 9: Initial Presentation of Business Plan Capstones

 Review of prior session

 150
 Oral presentation of initial business plans (all groups). These presentations should

answer the question: “what needs, who are the clients, with which service or

product?”

 Every team disposes of 10 minutes to provide the class with an overview of the

project. Students should take this opportunity to get prepared for the final project

presentation. Each presentation should satisfy the following requirements:

 The mission statement of the venture.

 Identification of the venture opportunity (unmet needs, clients and service)

 Scanning of the external environment: a) the size of the market and potential

niche, b) identification of competitors with their strengths and weaknesses.

 Identification of competitive advantage in terms of entry strategy and added

value to clients.

 The innovative solutions of the project likely to bring in social change.

 Presentations are followed by 5 minutes of questions, in turn followed up by

discussion with instructors.

 Students should submit a five page report summarizing the above key points of

the business project action plan. This report will be followed up by activities

developed during the capstone business plan laboratory sessions.

WEEK 10 and 11: Capstone Business Plan Laboratory

 Review of prior session reminding the learning outcomes of business plan project

that include integrative learning, problem solving, communication and teamwork.

 151
 Workshops are held to help student draft a business plan. Students use their

knowledge they have received in earlier business courses. Workshops are

recommended to be team animated by instructors who serve the functional

business disciplines of the business plan. The following topics constitute the

pillars of the project experience:

 Undergraduate research about the industry addressing the following

issues:

 Size of the industry and growth rate

 Size of the addressable market for your product or service

 How do products and services flow within the industry (supply chain

and sales channel)

 Market segmentation/customer profile

 What business and revenue models are currently employed in your

industry space?

 Who are the various players in this market space: customers, suppliers,

and competitors? What do they value?

 Who are the influencers who impact customer and investor opinion,

including ethical and sustainability issues?

 What trends in the industry will impact your company?

 Define and convey the compelling need and differentiation to buy your

offering

 Functional plans
 152
 Operation management (type of production; business and production

processes; equipment and logistics; quality control…)

 Human resource management (recruitment qualifications; human

resource management philosophy and policies; the organizational chart

of the project)

 Access to market (marketing policy; sales channels)

 Legal aspects

 Legal form of the ownership (Limited or unlimited responsibility)

 Finance planning

 Pro forma income statements, cash flow statements and balance sheets for

five years, with a quarterly analysis for the first year

 Key ratios, risk/reward profile, and breakeven analyses

 Capital budget

 A sheet detailing key assumptions that drive the 3 years financial

projections

WEEK 12 and 13: Final Presentation Business Plan Project Capstone Forum

 Review of the prior session

 It is recommended that a forum should be held for the business plan presentations.

Students are expected to get involved in the preparation of this event and invite

members of the professional community with whom they were in contact during

the course.
 153
 Presentation should last no longer than 20 minutes and are followed by questions

and comments from a panel of judges that include experienced entrepreneurs,

faculty, bankers, and other experts. They will review the business plans and will

judge each team on the completeness of their business plans as well as their

capacity to convince the audience.

WEEK 14: Finalization of the Final Project Written Report

 Review of the prior session

 This session is recommended to be team animated by the course and the

communication instructors.

 Business Plan should include the following content:

 Executive summary

 Mission and Vision statement of the venture

 Legal aspect of the ownership

 Management, organizational requirements

 Industry/market overview

 Description of product or service

 Technology assessment

 Company competitive advantages

 Environment scanning (SWOT)

 Entry Strategy (Objectives, Market Leadership, Growth Strategy and Intended

Market Position)
 154
 Marketing and sales plan

 Operations plan

 Financial planning (P&L, Balance Sheet, Cash Flow, Capital Budget)

 Break-even analyses

 Limited to 25 pages of text and exhibits

 Make extensive use of graphics and exhibits

 Include a financial appendix (not included in the 25 pages limit)

Homework for Next Time:

 Finalize students reflections

 Finalize the video presentation of students’ reflections and achievements with the

help and contribution of the technology lab resources.

WEEK 15: Individual Oral Presentations

Assessment and reflection are key parts of the learning strategy used in the course.

Students will,

 Orally present an individual reflection in the light of the learning outcomes of this

course

 Evaluate their classmate and themselves throughout the learning process.

WEEK 16: Video Presentation of Students’ Achievements

 This session marks the end of the course. Students use technology to record a

video presentation that highlights their reflections and key projects achievements.
 155
The video might stand for a virtual resume that students could make available

through the social media. Potential employers or investors could look, listen, and

feel the personality and potential of the university graduates, which would open

possibility of their immediate professional or entrepreneurial immersion.

 Students evaluating the course by answering the final course survey.

 156
The Program Matrix

Experiential Learning Outcomes

Activities Personal Development

Team Innovation Communication Persistence Problem Integrative

work solving learning

Undergraduate

research

Oral

presentation

Debates

Guest

entrepreneur

Trip visit to

entrepreneur

Business

game

Business plan

capstone

Experiential Activities Learning Outcomes

Professional and Business knowledge development

Identify the Market the Fund the Elaborate entry

 157
opportunity concept project strategies

Undergraduate Research

Oral presentation

Debates

Guest entrepreneur

Trip visit to entrepreneur

Business game

Guest entrepreneur
 158
Peer Evaluation Rubric (1)

Confidential

Group Peer Evaluation Form

Your Name _______________________________

Group Name ______________________________

Instructor Name _______________________________

Project assignment _______________________________

Carefully evaluate the performance of each member of your group, including yourself,

over the period of the group project.

5 – Outstanding 4 – Good 3 – Satisfactory 2 – Poor 1 – Unacceptable

Group Group Group Group Myself

Member Member Member Member
#1 #2 #3 #4
Name: Name: Name: Name:

1. Did his/her fair share of the

work that was required
2. Cooperated with other group
members
3. Shared responsibilities and
did not try to take charge
inappropriately
4. Completed his/her share of
the work on schedule
5. Always submitted his/her
best
Effort
6. Communicated thoughts and
feelings effectively
 159
7. Was always well prepared
for meetings and the actual
presentation.
8. Participated in, and
contributed to, all relevant
discussions
9. Attended group meetings
when required to do so.
10. I would choose this person,
over all others, to be in the
same group with me in the
future.

The average for this person (1 to 5): ___________ ____________ ___________

___________
(Round average for each group member to two decimal places, e.g. 4.25)

Feedback on team dynamics:

1. How effectively did your group work?

2. Were the behaviors of any of your team members particularly valuable or detrimental
to the team? Explain.

3. What did you learn about working in a group from this project that you will carry into
your next group experience?

(1). Adapted from https://franke.nau.edu/facstaff/.../Group_Peer_Evaluation.doc

 160
Team Contract Template (2)

TEAM CONTRACT

Team Name ______

Team Members:
1) _______________________________

2) _______________________________

3) _______________________________

4) _______________________________

5) _______________________________

Team Procedures

1. Day, time, and place for regular team meetings:

2. Preferred method of communication (e.g., e-mail, cell phone, wired phone,

Blackboard Discussion Board, face-to-face, in a certain class) in order to inform each
other of team meetings, announcement, updates, reminders, problems:

3. Decision-making policy (by consensus? by majority vote?):

4. Method for setting and following meeting agendas (Who will set each agenda?
When? How will team members be notified/reminded? Who will be responsible for
the team following the agenda during a team meeting? What will be done to keep the
team on track during a meeting?):

5. Method of record keeping (Who will be responsible for recording & disseminating
minutes? How & when will the minutes be disseminated? Where will all agendas &
minutes be kept?)
 161
Team Expectations

Work Quality

1. Project standards (What is a realistic level of quality for team presentations,

collaborative writing, individual research, preparation of drafts, peer reviews, etc.?):

2. Strategies to fulfill these standards:

Team Participation

1. Strategies to ensure cooperation and equal distribution of tasks:

2. Strategies for encouraging/including ideas from all team members (team

maintenance):

3. Strategies for keeping on task (task maintenance):

4. Preferences for leadership (informal, formal, individual, shared):

Personal Accountability

1. Expected individual attendance, punctuality, and participation at all team meetings:

2. Expected level of responsibility for fulfilling team assignments, timelines, and

deadlines
 162
3. Expected level of communication with other team members:

4. Expected level of commitment to team decisions and tasks.

Consequences for Failing to Follow Procedures and Fulfill Expectations

1. Describe, as a group, you would handle infractions of any of the obligations of this
team contract:

2. Describe what your team will do if the infractions continue:

………………………………………………………………………………………………

a) I participated in formulating the standards, roles, and procedures as stated in this

contract.
b) I understand that I am obligated to abide by these terms and conditions.
c) I understand that if I do not abide by these terms and conditions, I will suffer the
consequences as stated in this contract.

1)_________________________________________________date__________________
2)_________________________________________________date__________________
3)_________________________________________________date__________________
4)_________________________________________________date__________________
5)_________________________________________________date__________________

(2) Contract template: http://math.arizona.edu/~kerimar/Team%20Contract.doc

 163
Oral communication Value Rubric
for more information, please contact value@aacu.org (3)

The VALUE rubrics were developed by teams of faculty experts representing colleges and universities across the
United States through a process that examined many existing campus rubrics and related documents for each learning
outcome and incorporated additional feedback from faculty. The rubrics articulate fundamental criteria for each
learning outcome, with performance descriptors demonstrating progressively more sophisticated levels of attainment.
The rubrics are intended for institutional-level use in evaluating and discussing student learning, not for grading. The
core expectations articulated in all 15 of the VALUE rubrics can and should be translated into the language of
individual campuses, disciplines, and even courses. The utility of the VALUE rubrics is to position learning at all
undergraduate levels within a basic framework of expectations such that evidence of learning can by shared nationally
through a common dialog and understanding of student success.

The type of oral communication most likely to be included in a collection of student work is an oral
presentation and therefore is the focus for the application of this rubric.

Definition
Oral communication is a prepared, purposeful presentation designed to increase knowledge, to foster
understanding, or to promote change in the listeners' attitudes, values, beliefs, or behaviors.

Framing Language
Oral communication takes many forms. This rubric is specifically designed to evaluate oral presentations of
a single speaker at a time and is best applied to live or video-recorded presentations. For panel presentations or group
presentations, it is recommended that each speaker be evaluated separately. This rubric best applies to presentations of
sufficient length such that a central message is conveyed, supported by one or more forms of supporting materials and
includes a purposeful organization. An oral answer to a single question not designed to be structured into a presentation
does not readily apply to this rubric.

Glossary
The definitions that follow were developed to clarify terms and concepts used in this rubric only.
 Central message: The main point/thesis/"bottom line"/"take-away" of a presentation. A clear central message
is easy to identify; a compelling central message is also vivid and memorable.
 Delivery techniques: Posture, gestures, eye contact, and use of the voice. Delivery techniques enhance the
effectiveness of the presentation when the speaker stands and moves with authority, looks more often at the
audience than at his/her speaking materials/notes, uses the voice expressively, and uses few vocal fillers
("um," "uh," "like," "you know," etc.).
 Language: Vocabulary, terminology, and sentence structure. Language that supports the effectiveness of a
presentation is appropriate to the topic and audience, grammatical, clear, and free from bias. Language that
enhances the effectiveness of a presentation is also vivid, imaginative, and expressive.
 Organization: The grouping and sequencing of ideas and supporting material in a presentation. An
organizational pattern that supports the effectiveness of a presentation typically includes an introduction, one
or more identifiable sections in the body of the speech, and a conclusion. An organizational pattern that
enhances the effectiveness of the presentation reflects a purposeful choice among possible alternatives, such
as a chronological pattern, a problem-solution pattern, an analysis-of-parts pattern, etc., that makes the
content of the presentation easier to follow and more likely to accomplish its purpose.
 Supporting material: Explanations, examples, illustrations, statistics, analogies, quotations from relevant
authorities, and other kinds of information or analysis that supports the principal ideas of the presentation.
Supporting material is generally credible when it is relevant and derived from reliable and appropriate
sources. Supporting material is highly credible when it is also vivid and varied across the types listed above
(e.g., a mix of examples, statistics, and references to authorities). Supporting material may also serve the
purpose of establishing the speakers credibility. For example, in presenting a creative work such as a
dramatic reading of Shakespeare, supporting evidence may not advance the ideas of Shakespeare, but rather
serve to establish the speaker as a credible Shakespearean actor.
 164
ORAL COMMUNICATION VALUE RUBRIC
for more information, please contact value@aacu.org
Definition
Oral communication is a prepared, purposeful presentation designed to increase knowledge,
to foster understanding, or to promote change in the listeners' attitudes, values, beliefs, or
behaviors.
Evaluators are encouraged to assign a zero to any work sample or collection
of work that does not meet benchmark (cell one) level performance.

4 3 2 1 Score
1
Organization Organizational Organizational Organizational Organizational
pattern (specific pattern (specific pattern (specific pattern (specific
introduction and introduction and introduction and introduction and
conclusion, conclusion, conclusion, conclusion,
sequenced sequenced material sequenced material sequenced
material within within the body, and within the body, material within
the body, and transitions) is clearly and transitions) is the body, and
transitions) is and consistently intermittently transitions) is not
clearly and observable within the observable within observable within
consistently presentation. the presentation. the presentation.
observable and is
skillful and
makes the content
of the
presentation
cohesive.
Language Language choices Language choices are Language choices Language choices
are imaginative, thoughtful and are mundane and are unclear and
memorable, and generally support the commonplace and minimally
compelling, and effectiveness of the partially support support the
enhance the presentation. the effectiveness of effectiveness of
effectiveness of Language in the presentation. the presentation.
the presentation. presentation is Language in Language in
Language in appropriate to presentation is presentation is
presentation is audience. appropriate to not appropriate to
appropriate to audience. audience.
audience.
Delivery Delivery Delivery techniques Delivery Delivery
techniques (posture, gesture, eye techniques techniques
(posture, gesture, contact, and vocal (posture, gesture, (posture, gesture,
eye contact, and expressiveness) eye contact, and eye contact, and
vocal make the vocal vocal
expressiveness) presentation expressiveness) expressiveness)
make the interesting, and make the detract from the
presentation speaker appears presentation understandability
compelling, and comfortable. understandable, of the
speaker appears and speaker presentation, and
polished and appears tentative. speaker appears
 165
confident. uncomfortable.
Supporting A variety of types Supporting materials Supporting Insufficient
Material of supporting (explanations, materials supporting
materials examples, (explanations, materials
(explanations, illustrations, examples, (explanations,
examples, statistics, analogies, illustrations, examples,
illustrations, quotations from statistics, illustrations,
statistics, relevant authorities) analogies, statistics,
analogies, make appropriate quotations from analogies,
quotations from reference to relevant quotations from
relevant information or authorities) make relevant
authorities) make analysis that appropriate authorities) make
appropriate generally supports reference to reference to
reference to the presentation or information or information or
information or establishes the analysis that analysis that
analysis that presenter's partially supports minimally
significantly credibility/authority the presentation or supports the
supports the on the topic. establishes the presentation or
presentation or presenter's establishes the
establishes the credibility/authorit presenter's
presenter's y on the topic. credibility/authori
credibility/authori ty on the topic.
ty on the topic.
Central Central message Central message is Central message is Central message
Message is compelling clear and consistent basically can be deduced,
(precisely stated, with the supporting understandable but but is not
appropriately material. is not often explicitly stated
repeated, repeated and is not in the
memorable, and memorable. presentation.
strongly
supported.)
Total

Name: __________________________________________________________ Date:_____________

Instructor/Evaluator: _________________________________________ Course:

________________________
Comments:

(4) AAC&U - http://www.aacu.org/value/metarubrics.cfm

 166
Teamwork VALUE Rubric
for more information, please contact value@aacu.org(5)

Definition
Teamwork is behaviors under the control of individual team members (effort they put into team
tasks, their manner of interacting with others on team, and the quantity and quality of contributions they
make to team discussions.)

Framing Language
Students participate on many different teams, in many different settings. For example, a given
student may work on separate teams to complete a lab assignment, give an oral presentation, or complete a
community service project. Furthermore, the people the student works with are likely to be different in
each of these different teams. As a result, it is assumed that a work sample or collection of work that
demonstrates a student’s teamwork skills could include a diverse range of inputs. This rubric is designed to
function across all of these different settings.
Two characteristics define the ways in which this rubric is to be used. First, the rubric is meant to
assess the teamwork of an individual student, not the team as a whole. Therefore, it is possible for a
student to receive high ratings, even if the team as a whole is rather flawed. Similarly, a student could
receive low ratings, even if the team as a whole works fairly well. Second, this rubric is designed to
measure the quality of a process, rather than the quality of an end product. As a result, work samples or
collections of work will need to include some evidence of the individual’s interactions within the team. The
final product of the team’s work (e.g., a written lab report) is insufficient, as it does not provide insight into
the functioning of the team.
It is recommended that work samples or collections of work for this outcome come from one (or
more) of the following three sources: (1) students' own reflections about their contribution to a team's
functioning; (2) evaluation or feedback from fellow team members about students' contribution to the
team's functioning; or (3) the evaluation of an outside observer regarding students' contributions to a team's
functioning. These three sources differ considerably in the resource demands they place on an institution.
It is recommended that institutions using this rubric consider carefully the resources they are able to
allocate to the assessment of teamwork and choose a means of compiling work samples or collections of
work that best suits their priorities, needs, and abilities.

Teamwork VALUE Rubric

for more information, please contact value@aacu.org

4 3 2 1 Score
Contributes Helps the team Offers alternative Offers new Shares ideas but does
to Team move forward by solutions or courses suggestions to not advance the work
Meetings articulating the of action that build advance the work of of the group.
merits of alternative on the ideas of the group.
ideas or proposals. others.
Facilitates Engages team Engages team Engages team Engages team members
the members in ways members in ways members in ways that by taking turns and
Contributio that facilitate their that facilitate their facilitate their listening to others
ns of Team contributions to contributions to contributions to without interrupting.
Members meetings by both meetings by meetings by restating
constructively constructively the views of other
building upon or building upon or team members and/or
 167
synthesizing the synthesizing the asking questions for
contributions of contributions of clarification.
others as well as others.
noticing when
someone is not
participating and
inviting them to
engage.
Individual Completes all Completes all Completes all Completes all assigned
Contributio assigned tasks by assigned tasks by assigned tasks by tasks by deadline.
ns Outside deadline; deadline; deadline;
of Team work accomplished work accomplished work accomplished
Meetings is thorough, is thorough, advances the project.
comprehensive, and comprehensive, and
advances the advances the
project. project.
Proactively helps
other team members
complete their
assigned tasks to a
similar level of
excellence.
Fosters Supports a Supports a Supports a Supports a constructive
Constructiv constructive team constructive team constructive team team climate by doing
e Team climate by doing all climate by climate by doing any any one of the
Climate of the following: doing any three of two of the following: following:
 Treats the following:  Treats team  Treats team
team  Treats members members
members team respectfully respectfully
respectfull members by being by being
y by being respectfull polite and polite and
polite and y by being constructive constructive
constructiv polite and in in
e in constructiv communicati communicatio
communic e in on. n.
ation. communic  Uses positive  Uses positive
 Uses ation. vocal or vocal or
positive  Uses written tone, written tone,
vocal or positive facial facial
written vocal or expressions, expressions,
tone, facial written and/or body and/or body
expression tone, facial language to language to
s, and/or expression convey a convey a
body s, and/or positive positive
language to body attitude attitude about
convey a language to about the the team and
positive convey a team and its its work.
attitude positive work.  Motivates
about the attitude  Motivates teammates by
team and about the teammates expressing
its work. team and by confidence
 Motivates its work. expressing about the
teammates  Motivates confidence importance of
by teammates about the the task and
 168
expressing by importance the team's
confidence expressing of the task ability to
about the confidence and the accomplish it.
importance about the team's ability  Provides
of the task importance to assistance
and the of the task accomplish and/or
team's and the it. encouragemen
ability to team's  Provides t to team
accomplish ability to assistance members.
it. accomplish and/or
 Provides it. encourageme
assistance  Provides nt to team
and/or assistance members.
encourage and/or
ment to encourage
team ment to
members. team
members.
Responds to Addresses Identifies and Redirecting focus Passively accepts
Conflict destructive conflict acknowledges toward common alternate
directly and conflict and stays ground, toward task at viewpoints/ideas/opinio
constructively, engaged with it. hand (away from ns.
helping to conflict).
manage/resolve it in
a way that
strengthens overall
team cohesiveness
and future
effectiveness.
Total

Name: __________________________________________________________ Date:_______________

Instructor/Evaluator: _________________________________________ Course:

________________________
Comments:

(5) AAC&U - http://www.aacu.org/value/metarubrics.cfm

 169
Problem Solving VALUE Rubric
for more information, please contact value@aacu.org(6)

Definition
Problem solving is the process of designing, evaluating and implementing a strategy to answer an open-ended
question or achieve a desired goal.

Framing Language
Problem-solving covers a wide range of activities that may vary significantly across disciplines. Activities
that encompass problem-solving by students may involve problems that range from well-defined to ambiguous in a
simulated or laboratory context, or in real-world settings. This rubric distills the common elements of most problem-
solving contexts and is designed to function across all disciplines. It is broad-based enough to allow for individual
differences among learners, yet is concise and descriptive in its scope to determine how well students have maximized
their respective abilities to practice thinking through problems in order to reach solutions.
This rubric is designed to measure the quality of a process, rather than the quality of an end-product. As a
result, work samples or collections of work will need to include some evidence of the individual’s thinking about a
problem-solving task (e.g., reflections on the process from problem to proposed solution; steps in a problem-based
learning assignment; record of think-aloud protocol while solving a problem). The final product of an assignment that
required problem resolution is insufficient without insight into the student’s problem-solving process. Because the
focus is on institutional level assessment, scoring team projects, such as those developed in capstone courses, may be
appropriate as well.
Glossary
The definitions that follow were developed to clarify terms and concepts used in this rubric only.
 Contextual Factors: Constraints (such as limits on cost), resources, attitudes (such as biases) and desired
additional knowledge which affect how the problem can be best solved in the real world or simulated setting.
 Critique: Involves analysis and synthesis of a full range of perspectives.
 Feasible: Workable, in consideration of time-frame, functionality, available resources, necessary buy-in, and
limits of the assignment or task.
 “Off the shelf”solution: A simplistic option that is familiar from everyday experience but not tailored to the
problem at hand (e.g. holding a bake sale to "save" an underfunded public library).
 Solution: An appropriate response to a challenge or a problem.
 Strategy: A plan of action or an approach designed to arrive at a solution. ( If the problem is a river that needs
to be crossed, there could be a construction-oriented, cooperative (build a bridge with your community)
approach and a personally oriented, physical (swim across alone) approach. An approach that partially
applies would be a personal, physical approach for someone who doesn't know how to swim.
Support: Specific rationale, evidence, etc. for solution or selection of solution

Problem Solving VALUE Rubric

for more information, please contact value@aacu.org
Evaluators are encouraged to assign a zero to any work sample or collection of work that does not meet benchmark (cell one)
level performance.
4 3 2 1 Score
Define Problem Demonstrates Demonstrates the Begins to Demonstrates a
the ability to ability to construct demonstrate the limited ability
construct a clear a problem ability to in identifying a
and insightful statement with construct a problem
problem evidence of most problem statement or
statement with relevant statement with related
evidence of all contextual factors, evidence of most contextual
relevant and problem relevant factors.
contextual statement is contextual
factors. adequately factors, but
detailed. problem
 170
statement is
superficial.
Identify Identifies Identifies multiple Identifies only a Identifies one or
Strategies multiple approaches for single approach more
approaches for solving the for solving the approaches for
solving the problem, only problem that solving the
problem that some of which does apply problem that do
apply within a apply within a within a specific not apply within
specific context. specific context. context. a specific
context.
Propose Proposes one or Proposes one or Proposes one Proposes a
Solutions/Hypot more more solution/hypothe solution/hypoth
heses solutions/hypoth solutions/hypothes sis that is “off esis that is
eses that es that indicates the shelf” rather difficult to
indicates a deep comprehension of than individually evaluate
comprehension the problem. designed to because it is
of the problem. Solutions/hypothe address the vague or only
Solution/hypothe ses are sensitive to specific indirectly
ses are sensitive contextual factors contextual addresses the
to contextual as well as the one factors of the problem
factors as well as of the following: problem. statement.
all of the ethical, logical, or
following: cultural
ethical, logical, dimensions of the
and cultural problem.
dimensions of
the problem.
Evaluate Evaluation of Evaluation of Evaluation of Evaluation of
Potential solutions is deep solutions is solutions is brief solutions is
Solutions and elegant (for adequate (for (for example, superficial (for
example, example, contains explanation example,
contains thorough lacks depth) and contains
thorough and explanation) and includes the cursory, surface
insightful includes the following: level
explanation) and following: considers history explanation)
includes, deeply considers history of problem, and includes the
and thoroughly, of problem, reviews following:
all of the reviews logic/reasoning, considers
following: logic/reasoning, examines history of
considers history examines feasibility of problem,
of problem, feasibility of solution, and reviews
reviews solution, and weighs impacts logic/reasoning,
logic/reasoning, weighs impacts of of solution. examines
examines solution. feasibility of
feasibility of solution, and
solution, and weighs impacts
weighs impacts of solution.
of solution.
 171
Implement Implements the Implements the Implements the Implements the
Solution solution in a solution in a solution in a solution in a
manner that manner that manner that manner that
addresses addresses multiple addresses the does not
thoroughly and contextual factors problem directly address
deeply multiple of the problem in statement but the problem
contextual a surface manner. ignores relevant statement.
factors of the contextual
problem. factors.
Evaluate Reviews results Reviews results Reviews results Reviews results
Outcomes relative to the relative to the in terms of the superficially in
problem defined problem defined problem defined terms of the
with thorough, with some with little, if any, problem defined
specific consideration of consideration of with no
considerations of need for further need for further consideration of
need for further work. work. need for further
work. work
Total

Name: __________________________________________________________ Date:_______________

Instructor/Evaluator: _________________________________________ Course:

________________________
Comments:

(6) AAC&U - http://www.aacu.org/value/metarubrics.cfm

 172
Integrative Learning VALUE Rubric
for more information, please contact value@aacu.org (7)
Definition
Integrative learning is an understanding and a disposition that a student builds across the curriculum and co-curriculum,
from making simple connections among ideas and experiences to synthesizing and transferring learning to new,
complex situations within and beyond the campus.

Framing Language
Fostering students’ abilities to integrate learning—across courses, over time, and between campus and
community life—is one of the most important goals and challenges for higher education. Initially, students connect
previous learning to new classroom learning. Later, significant knowledge within individual disciplines serves as the
foundation, but integrative learning goes beyond academic boundaries. Indeed, integrative experiences often occur as
learners address real-world problems, unscripted and sufficiently broad, to require multiple areas of knowledge and
multiple modes of inquiry, offering multiple solutions and benefiting from multiple perspectives. Integrative learning
also involves internal changes in the learner. These internal changes, which indicate growth as a confident, lifelong
learner, include the ability to adapt one's intellectual skills, to contribute in a wide variety of situations, and to
understand and develop individual purpose, values and ethics. Developing students’ capacities for integrative learning
is central to personal success, social responsibility, and civic engagement in today’s global society. Students face a
rapidly changing and increasingly connected world where integrative learning becomes not just a benefit...but a
necessity.
Because integrative learning is about making connections, this learning may not be as evident in traditional
academic artifacts such as research papers and academic projects unless the student, for example, is prompted to draw
implications for practice. These connections often surface, however, in reflective work, self assessment, or creative
endeavors of all kinds. Integrative assignments foster learning between courses or by connecting courses to
experientially-based work. Work samples or collections of work that include such artifacts give evidence of integrative
learning. Faculty are encouraged to look for evidence that the student connects the learning gained in classroom study
to learning gained in real life situations that are related to other learning experiences, extra-curricular activities, or
work. Through integrative learning, students pull together their entire experience inside and outside of the formal
classroom; thus, artificial barriers between formal study and informal or tacit learning become permeable. Integrative
learning, whatever the context or source, builds upon connecting both theory and practice toward a deepened
understanding.
Assignments to foster such connections and understanding could include, for example, composition papers
that focus on topics from biology, economics, or history; mathematics assignments that apply mathematical tools to
important issues and require written analysis to explain the implications and limitations of the mathematical treatment,
or art history presentations that demonstrate aesthetic connections between selected paintings and novels. In this regard,
some majors (e.g., interdisciplinary majors or problem-based field studies) seem to inherently evoke characteristics of
integrative learning and result in work samples or collections of work that significantly demonstrate this outcome.
However, fields of study that require accumulation of extensive and high-consensus content knowledge (such as
accounting, engineering, or chemistry) also involve the kinds of complex and integrative constructions (e.g., ethical
dilemmas and social consciousness) that seem to be highlighted so extensively in self reflection in arts and humanities,
but they may be embedded in individual performances and less evident. The key in the development of such work
samples or collections of work will be in designing structures that include artifacts and reflective writing or feedback
that support students' examination of their learning and give evidence that, as graduates, they will extend their
integrative abilities into the challenges of personal, professional, and civic life.
Glossary
The definitions that follow were developed to clarify terms and concepts used in this rubric only.
 Academic knowledge: Disciplinary learning; learning from academic study, texts, etc.
 Content: The information conveyed in the work samples or collections of work.
 Contexts: Actual or simulated situations in which a student demonstrates learning outcomes. New and
challenging contexts encourage students to stretch beyond their current frames of reference.
 Co-curriculum: A parallel component of the academic curriculum that is in addition to formal classroom
(student government, community service, residence hall activities, student organizations, etc.).
 Experience: Learning that takes place in a setting outside of the formal classroom, such as workplace,
service learning site, internship site or another.
 Form: The external frameworks in which information and evidence are presented, ranging from choices for
particular work sample or collection of works (such as a research paper, PowerPoint, video recording, etc.) to
choices in make-up of the eportfolio.
 173
 Performance: A dynamic and sustained act that brings together knowing and doing (creating a painting,
solving an experimental design problem, developing a public relations strategy for a business, etc.);
performance makes learning observable.
 Reflection: A meta-cognitive act of examining a performance in order to explore its significance and
consequences.
 Self Assessment: Describing, interpreting, and judging a performance based on stated or implied
expectations followed by planning for further learning

Integrative Learning VALUE Rubric

for more information, please contact value@aacu.org
Evaluators are encouraged to assign a zero to any work sample or collection of work that does not meet benchmark (cell
one) level performance.

4 3 2 1 Score
Connections to Meaningfully Effectively selects Compares life Identifies
Experience synthesizes and develops experiences and connections
Connects relevant connections among examples of life academic between life
experience and experiences outside experiences, drawn knowledge to infer experiences and
academic of the formal from a variety of differences, as well those academic
knowledge classroom contexts (e.g., as similarities, and texts and ideas
(including life family life, artistic acknowledge perceived as
experiences and participation, civic perspectives other similar and
academic involvement, work than own. related to own
experiences such as experience), to interests.
internships and illuminate
travel abroad) to concepts/theories/fr
deepen ameworks of fields
understanding of of study.
fields of study and
to broaden own
points of view.
Connections to Independently Independently When prompted, When
Discipline creates wholes out connects examples, connects examples, prompted,
Sees (makes) of multiple parts facts, or theories facts, or theories presents
connections (synthesizes) or from more than one from more than one examples, facts,
across draws conclusions field of study or field of study or or theories from
disciplines, by combining perspective. perspective. more than one
perspectives examples, facts, or field of study or
theories from more perspective.
than one field of
study or
perspective.
Transfer Adapts and applies, Adapts and applies Uses skills, Uses, in a basic
Adapts and independently, skills, abilities, abilities, theories, way, skills,
applies skills, skills, abilities, theories, or or methodologies abilities,
abilities, theories, theories, or methodologies gained in one theories, or
or methodologies methodologies gained in one situation in a new methodologies
gained in one gained in one situation to new situation to gained in one
situation to new situation to new situations to solve contribute to situation in a
situations situations to solve problems or understanding of new situation.
difficult problems explore issues. problems or
 174
or explore issues.
complex issues in
original ways.
Integrated Fulfills the Fulfills the Fulfills the Fulfills the
Communication assignment(s) by assignment(s) by assignment(s) by assignment(s)
choosing a format, choosing a format, choosing a format, (i.e. to produce
language, or graph language, or graph language, or graph an essay, a
(or other visual (or other visual (or other visual poster, a video,
representation) in representation) to representation) that a PowerPoint
ways that enhance explicitly connect connects in a basic presentation,
meaning, making content and form, way what is being etc.) in an
clear the demonstrating communicated appropriate
interdependence of awareness of (content) with how form.
language and purpose and it is said (form).
meaning, thought, audience.
and expression.
Reflection and Envisions a future Evaluates changes Articulates Describes own
Self-Assessment self (and possibly in own learning strengths and performances
Demonstrates a makes plans that over time, challenges (within with general
developing sense build on past recognizing specific descriptors of
of self as a experiences that complex contextual performances or success and
learner, building have occurred factors (e.g., works events) to increase failure.
on prior across multiple and with ambiguity and effectiveness in
experiences to diverse contexts). risk, deals with different contexts
respond to new frustration, (through increased
and challenging considers ethical self-awareness).
contexts (may be frameworks).
evident in self-
assessment,
reflective, or
creative work)
Total

Name: __________________________________________________________ Date:_______________

Instructor/Evaluator: _________________________________________ Course:

________________________
Comments:

(7) AAC&U - http://www.aacu.org/value/metarubrics.cfm

 175
Appendix B: Student Interview Questions

1) What do you perceive is the purpose of entrepreneurial education?

2) How do you perceive is the role of universities in promoting entrepreneurial

education?

3) Tell me in what way did your undergraduate studies promote entrepreneurial

education?

4) From your perspective, how is innovation and entrepreneurship encouraged at

the university?

5) How could entrepreneurial education boost professional achievement of

undergraduate students?

6) If you were to participate in an entrepreneurial learning activity, how would

you perceive the learning environment?

7) What do you perceive are the barriers to the development of entrepreneurial

learning at UIC?
 176
Appendix C: Academic Leaders Interview Questions

1) What do you perceive is the purpose of entrepreneurship education?

2) What is the rationale for the implementation of entrepreneurship learning at

UIC?

3) Tell me in what way did your academic unit promote entrepreneurial

education?

4) How does your academic unit participate in the entrepreneurial education

initiative encouraged by the university?

5) How does your academic unit’s participation in entrepreneurial education

change the experiences of your undergraduate students?

6) Please describe the goals of your students engaged in entrepreneurial

education?

7) What types of projects are they involved in?

8) What are the outcomes of such projects?

9) How are the students assessed and rewarded for such activities?

10) Have there been any obstacles to the implementation of entrepreneurial

education? If so, what have they been and why do they exist?

11) How supportive is your leadership of your pursuit of an entrepreneurial

education?

12) Do you receive resistance from other department faculty? If so, what are they?
 177
Appendix D: Stakeholders Interview Questions

1) What is the rationale for the development and implementation of

entrepreneurship learning on campuses?

2) How does your organization participate in the entrepreneurial education

initiative?

3) What kind of support has your organization brought in for the implementation

of entrepreneurial learning?

4) What values does entrepreneurial education add to your organization and the

community?

5) What units do you collaborate with across campus to facilitate

entrepreneurship education?

6) Have there been barriers to the development of such relationships? If so, what

have they been and why do they exist

 178
Appendix E: Sample of Participants’ Quotes

Theme 1. Entrepreneurial Student

Subtheme: Personal Development

Student participant B: learning should more focus on the personality of the entrepreneur

and mainly develop the personal attributes.” The entrepreneur] should be reactive in

order to take risk in investing her time, her energy, and her resources to create value and

create wealth.

Student A: Entrepreneurship is very interesting, because it not only provides you with

the qualified resource to hire to execute the job for the boss, but provides the individual

with initiative capabilities, critical thinking, and problem solving skills.

Student C: [Students] should be able to work in team and have a spirit of sharing.

personal competencies are not taught to us at the university.

Student D: I have a feeling of achievement. I feel I have learned something. But, I had

not this same feeling when I passed my exams or my courses. I had it by winning the

third place in the McGuire business game competition.

Student I: Entrepreneurship learning will help students attain their professional

achievement because that will enable them to know themselves better and have a better

visibility on their achievement over the 3 years of the bachelor; that means, they will try

to appropriately understand the labor market [that] apprehend the risk to take and the one

not to take so as to avoid being disappointed [when confronted with external world],

because what we have studied here at the undergraduate level is far from reality.
 179
Student J: I want to talk about the spirit of entrepreneurship. It will help people achieve

their professional life so they can’t surrender after the first handicap they meet. That

means that there is endurance, a positive spirit [that] won’t give up.

Academic leader G: “[Entrepreneurship learning] is to show to students how to gain

self-confidence…and the spirit of the winner and performer. [Entrepreneurship learning]

is the promotion of what the student does, that translates her pride of belonging to the

college because the fact of promoting my college means that you are satisfied with the

learning you receive at the university.

Academic leader H: If you are at a university to do a traditional business management

major, that means that you are an average student, which means that you already have a

bad impression about yourself as a student; so, what we need is to give confidence to

student from the start.

Business leader E: The real debate to my mind, in this process, should be focused on the

personality of the entrepreneur. I prefer having an average project, lower than average

with a high entrepreneurial profile, a fighter, self-confident, someone with a well-done

and structured brain, humble, than someone who brings an excellent project with a high

profitable market but whose entrepreneurial profile is average. The latter have the least

chances to succeed in business.

The student is, in most cases, depreciated, which weakens her personality and feels

skeptical about her personal qualities and her later choices as an adult…Technical

training is important but not sufficient. Personal development, coaching, and mentoring

of professional entrepreneurs are the key elements for the success of the entrepreneurial
 180
adventure. Entrepreneurs should have a mental out of iron, solid enough to move beyond

any possible failure.

Business leader K: Students should reflect on their learning and learn how to better

know themselves, their capacities, and their uniqueness along their learning

process…What is important in a curriculum of entrepreneurship learning is the

interpersonal relationship skills, because in general, individuals in organizations or

schools might have a lot of competencies, a lot good will, but in most times, they don’t

know how to collaborate. They have not learned to be open minded, to trust other, to

work in teams, and to consider the difference as a source of complementarity.

Subtheme: Professional immersion

Student J: Young people want to create their own venture. They have the intention but

not the know how to do so… I really want to create my enterprise after a while of

professional experience.

Student D: I want to talk about the Moroccan context. Today, Morocco is promoting

entrepreneurship, namely at the CGEM that is creating a concept of start up days. I think

these are training sessions for start ups, and CGEM is collaborating with universities to

prepare people to launch their ventures with efficacy. The university has a crucial role to

contribute to the success of new ventures and avoid their failures, as 90% of new projects

fails…The coaching should be ensured by a professor or a professional and through

partnership with incubators that might assist those students entrepreneurs.

 181
Student A: You should always learn entrepreneurship not only to become a creative

individual, but to become a rationalized person, you optimize costs, even if it’s not your

company, you should think as an entrepreneur.

Universities should not confine entrepreneurship learning to entrepreneurs only.

Employees having chosen a stable job should benefit from entrepreneurship learning that

would transform them to become entrepreneurs…Intrapreneurship and entrepreneurship

are linked together, you are an entrepreneur when you create new jobs but also an

entrepreneur within an existing company, which will bring in new blood to the company.

You should do many internships. Personally, I did not do internships, and I really regret

that. I have done one internship term during the third year of my bachelor and now during

my master graduation internship. I realize that you need to have substantial experience to

not only choose the appropriate internship but take the right way of career. I have

personally worked in the community service area and done some projects in parallel. I

like to do whatever has to do with practice. I have realized a project called Education

programme in partnership with the Moroccan American club that is located at the

American consulate. I was the project’s manager [and] negotiated with partners.

Student D: University teaches us concepts and methods. Competency is the real use of

those methods…To succeed professionally, you have to master the use of those concepts.

This is why we see a person advancing rapidly in his career compared to another.

Internships are very helpful. Each year, we know that we have a mandatory internship

term in the third year of the bachelor …whereas other competing schools impose

internships during each year of the undergraduate program. This, I think, stimulates
 182
chronologically and gradually the individual in the professional life. Each year you

capitalize on the previous year’s professional experience.

Student I: This is why we getting back to the experience…with internships…because our

internships of 4 or 5 weeks at the end of our bachelor program at least introduced us to

the environment of the company and do not confront us with the different layers of the

firm. Now at my fifth year of program, when I go out for the company, I see other things

that are missing in our curriculum at the university. Unfortunately, we are taught courses

and tools that will help us find a job but not be active agents of positive change in our

society. I think you should be realistic. That means you should know about the labor

market. Why, because in my undergraduate studies, we received education to apply it in

an idealistic world, within an environment that is perfect, [and] without risk. We will

graduate, we will have such remuneration, and so you are taught a blurred reality…[And]

when you go out to the real world, you are disappointed.

Student C: I think that we should encourage many internship experiences, that we should

not wait till the bachelor capstone project or the third year to submit our internship

dissertation, [and] that we should experience internships all over the program. I think, in

one year, I could learn more in terms of field experience than at the university. That

means what is learned in courses, in books, is not what we see in real professional life, in

day-to-day life, this is not real…With experience, things are different. I have seen in the

health department that students have many internships. They have been at the university

hospital. Everybody works and has a lot meetings with the health professionals. I find this
 183
very interesting…We had very good instructors in class who taught a high quality

courses but they did not learn us how to behave within the enterprise.

Student J: The entrepreneurship action is not limited to venture creation, but to how

ensuring its functioning and perenity.

Student B: University should in this case provide the student with tools of strategic

reasoning and not theoretical knowledge…how to manage people, how to manage

moods, a team for example, but all this should be practical and not theoretical.

Entrepreneurship learning transforms a part of students toward entrepreneurship. I think

they will be capable of understanding the enterprise, its internal, and external

environmental challenges. University should incite students to practice social

entrepreneurship.

Academic leader G: Let’s talk about learning. There are complementary notions.

Teaching has more an academic dimension, while learning should have a professional

aspect, which means that learning is competency and not knowledge-based and should

adapt to the requirements of labor market…I instruct [students] for a job. I instruct for the

labor market. [In the hospitality major] we have internships and experiential assignments

to develop the student’s entrepreneurial spirit and initiative that will enable her manage

real professional situations.

Academic leader H: I think that students of business management are not all of them

future entrepreneurs. They are here to acquire a know-how and master methods to work

in companies. That means they will be good managers, executors, but have not

necessarily the leadership to manage an entrepreneurship project.

 184
Business leader E: The entrepreneurial candidate is accompanied until himself and her

project are mature to benefit from venture capital…We construct with her the business

model and the business plan, challenge her about the entrepreneurial choices, and prepare

her to become the boss.

Business leader F: [Entrepreneurs] takes in charge the administrative task, looks for new

markets, conducts research, goes out to meet the client, supervises his accountancy, [and]

cover their managerial environment.

The university has a double role. The first one is to educate professionals with technical

and managerial competencies. The second role is to learn about the business sector that

might be associated to the professional [sector] that will receive the product employee

and the business venture being created…That means we start to ensure equilibrium

within a business sector and it’s the adaptive university, the intelligent university that

should be the mentor of this model, of course, in partnership with the professional sector

Subtheme: Internationality

Student C: There is also the experience I lived at Madrid. I have profited from an

Erasmus exchange and that helped a lot my organizational behavior and my capacity to

discover other cultures. I think that makes a difference between a student who stayed

closed within the walls of the university and a student who went abroad to discover the

international environment.

Student I: I fortunately benefited from an international exchange opportunity, and, I

think this should be mandatory for all students. Why, because during this exchange

experience, we go out of our comfort zone and get confronted to different aspects we
 185
don’t meet in the same environment…I have seen at the French school students

belonging to other international universities. I saw they are risk taking. They collaborate

and learn from others and I think that risk taking is an attribute that is covered by the

issue of entrepreneurship.

Academic leader G: [Students] can’t be achievable without an international openness.

We can’t succeed unless we adopt an international vision. [A student] who does not

achieve an international internship has little chance to be [an entrepreneur].

Theme: Entrepreneurial learning

Subtheme: Project-based learning

Student A: entrepreneurship learning started by showing [to the student] how to fin a

project idea [and] incorporating a comprehensive curriculum about how to manage a

project.

Student B: The project’s content should be real and in connection with the social and

economic environment of the student.

Student D: Learning will enable me to acquire the methodology that guides me to realize

a project as an entrepreneur,” which would contribute to increase the rate of project’s

success in the real professional sector where “90% of project’s holders fail. I have said

that in my speech at the first Macguire competition. That means that students should take

the initiative [and] be engaged to realize their project. I think that it’s crucial for the

university to participate in the realization process of this project and I think this is what

has been missing in some cases: the accompaniment.

 186
Student I: There is for example, the know-how to realize a business plan and action

plans, which consist in establishing the stages and the logical sequence to achieve a

project.”

Student C: [University] should learn us how we could work in a project as a team, build

a new project [and] follow the steps from A to Z of the project. That is from its budget,

marketing, to sales. I think this is what we should be up to [at UIC].

Academic leader G: We try to develop projects. Our curriculum is essentially project-

based. [Students] develop what we call integrated project and integrate the relevant

business fields to the project, including management, the environment, human resources,

finance, and marketing.

There is the project of free open days whereby I asked first years students to

communicate on their Facebook and Twitter about the organisation of this event. This is

to show that communication is vital to any project. A project where students will take the

initiative. So they will not be passive but active to invite their friends to the event.

However, to my mind, this initiative has been so far undertaken at the institutional level,

at the university level, on the website, and Facebook of the university…I think that it’s

more credible when students recommends their schools, which reflect their strong

belonging to the college.

I found that projects based learning yielded amazing results. Students themselves press to

go ahead with the process of the project realization. For example, in the case of lunch

gala, students come to see me to report about what they do. That’s a positive issue that
 187
provides evidence about the engagement and enthusiasm of student. Because for me, the

most important issue is to have the courage to enterprise.

Academic leader H: I have seen during the last two years that students were asked to

realize a service learning project that involves them in a project based process. That gives

them the taste to gear up for entrepreneurship.

Business leader K: So, to summarize, there is what [students] do in the context of the

entrepreneurship curriculum that might look like reality, with a direct impact. But there is

also all about the way a project is conducted with others and in contact with the

professional reality that develops the students’ curiosity as learners, soft skills, and a

mindset.

So, I think that action learning and field work is mandatory and that there should be a

recursive loop. In fact, we move through phases of project. There are different project

stages and then, once we experiment the first phase of the project, here we have a

recursive stage of reflection of learning, and come to ask: what do we have. First an

experimentation that fits in the global project, then reflection, learning, what worked and

what did not work, and what should we modify to realize the second prototype. The

constructivist approach, collaboration and reflection come to support the project

Subtheme: Experiential learning

Student A: [Innovation and entrepreneurial spirit] are not encouraged because there had

been only one business game at the master level and not at the undergraduate level. We

could not be more innovative and creative at the university…[As a consequence] I

worked in service learning and other practical things [on my own initiative].
 188
[It could be interesting] if [university] provided substantial time for every thing to do

with practice [and] leadership. They talk to us about leadership in books, leadership is

this and this. But in reality we don’t see what is leadership… Sometimes we finish the

course and we come just because we have not yet finished the course load. We come just

for coming…But for me, it could be very interesting if we gave importance to practice.

Theory is good. We should know what is theoretical, but it must be supported by

practice…I hope there should be a balance between [theory and practice] so that

everybody learns in an appropriate way.

I find that there are restrictions not only at UIC but in other institutions in general. For

example, when we are in class and that you sit in a certain way. The instructor is not

happy [because] you should sit appropriately. That kills the person. Personally, I don’t

like this. I am an energetic person, and when the instructor says to me: stop don’t move a

lot, I can’t even think, which disturbs me. So I think if we are within a less restricted

environment that will give you the desire to imagine, create, and innovate. I would like to

have practical cases, also multimedia because there are individuals that don’t learn

neither by listening nor writing, but rather by watching. Instructors…There are

instructors that do not smile. I don’t like it too much, because personally, I am someone

who is affected by the mood. So I prefer that the atmosphere of the class is relaxed.

Student D: Students don’t take initiatives because the curriculum is overloaded…We

could inspire from the American model where you have only four to five courses and the

remainder of time you go out to work for some money, practice sports, [and] participate

in competition. At the university, the major problem is that we got in class at 8 am, went
 189
out at 12 am, got in at 2 pm, and went out at 6 pm, like in high school. In fact, this is not

the spirit that should prevail at the university that should provide you with knowledge,

time, and freedom to practice other activities that include sports, experience. Like when I

was at Canada, I went to college and did community service…This is the experience that

we could acquire and use in entrepreneurship.

In general, the curriculum that I followed in my bachelor in business allowed me to know

about how to realize a project. But the university organized some extracurricular

activities that included [Mcguire] business plan, DecoCampus…It was not only about

methodology but also initiative. The majority of student lack initiative even if we

introduce them to this methodology. The [Mcguire] competition enabled me to apply my

business courses in the competition. The university allowed me to apply theoretical

knowledge to practice through extracurricular activities. I will first use case studies,

debates, and business games. For me, I think that these three instruments are very

important to inculcate the spirit of entrepreneurship to students.

Student C: We could suggest something for the sake of the university. We could adopt

the American system and schedule the same course at different time periods so to allow

students to have the choice to follow courses either during the morning or the afternoon

and practice a part-time professional activity. What we learn in courses and books is

disconnected from what we see in field work. I could imagine an activity where we

simulate a recruitment interview involving all my colleagues in changing roles activity

Student B: We had courses about innovation, but were theoretical. To my mind, this is

not innovation. Because we could ask a student who has just finished this course: what is
 190
the difference between invent and innovate, I am sure 80% could not answer…We have

to shift to the important level of living innovation instead of just knowing it. The

instructor has this difficulty to attract the attention of the student and interest them with

his course and to lead them where he wants to.

Student I: can say that in my undergraduate program, 70% of instructors came to deliver

theoretical courses no more. We did not discuss anything else.

It was more technical. There have been some courses of management that covered most

of the operations and organisation of the company, but that was more technical. It was

more theory that we could find in all enterprises, but that did not incite us to have this

ambition to create once own venture [and] take risk. I think that one of the activities that

develop this entrepreneurial aspect is oral presentations. That means, [we] present

subjects, argue and defend our own ideas and points of view. I would like that

[instructor’s role] change, to have instructors that learn us the personal skills, how to

construct the personality, and how to bring in positive change in society.

Student J: I think that my undergraduate studies did not promote entrepreneurial

learning; otherwise, I could have majored in entrepreneurship.

I could suggest workshops. Yes it could take place in the classroom. There are activities

that might take place off-campus, [learning] should not be limited to what happens

among the walls of the academia but can be processed outside.

Academic leader G: We practice learning when we develop a new paradigm [and] a new

pedagogy. The instructor in this case is no more the instructor in the traditional definition.

She is the coach. She is here to facilitate and pull out the potentialities of students. As a
 191
coach, she should focus her teaching on interactivity [and] the use of new information

technology. A comprehensive approach that encompasses competencies to help students

get into the professional world.

Assessment should not be done in an academic way. I won’t give students a grade, but I

will assess them as if in real professional situation. That means, they should prove

initiative, imagination, and team work.

Academic Leader H: I have a different perception to entrepreneurship. I want to say that

those things [business plan, documents] are easy to learn. This is not the problem. The

real problem is to have individuals with competencies [and] a global vision about things.

[They should] profit from this entrepreneurship bridge to cover environmental and social

issues that are so important for Morocco today.

To assess extracurricular activities, I have never thought about it. For me it could be the

first time such things happen, because I ever heard about such kind of assessment…Well,

that would mean that you will be assessed for your implication…It would be very

encouraging for students. That’s a positive point. That means that student would have a

tangible return on investment. As we applied for the renewal of the management major

accreditation last year, we added the following course: introduction to entrepreneurship

that did not exist before. So that was innovation. It’s a 12 hours course. So it is just

enough to give a taste, unfortunately. But it’s already a good initiative because it’s a

course that did not exist beforehand. So [imagine] you have a business major and you

have no course of entrepreneurship. 12 hours course is better than nothing.

 192
Business leader K: When you put students in real situations, they go on learning

entrepreneurial competencies by themselves. Doing so, on the one hand, would have

direct impact on their employability, which is processed in field work, and on the second

hand would enable them on a personal level to improve their capacity to learn on their

own…There should be visits to companies and connections with professionals and

facilitators with the role of coach and mentor.

Business leader E: Entrepreneurship learning should rely on the experience of experts in

the domain of entrepreneurship, coaches, and psychologist…One of the techniques to

evaluate the potential of students to manage difficult situations would be to put them in

stress situation where you see how they overcome it. With a researcher, we can’t build a

business venture.

Theme 3. Contextual challenges to entrepreneurial learning

Subtheme: Sociocultural challenge

Student C: I think that at university, we are no more kids…I think we arrive at a level [of

life] where we are responsible. So let’s talk about challenges. Sometimes academic

leaders and deans are not collaborative. They do not satisfy the needs of their students in

different departments by talking to them directly.

Student D: We consider the student as K-12 student a teenager, while at the university

one should empower student. I also blame the university for calling our parents.

Student J: When I confront people and say to them that I want to launch my venture,

they tell me you don’t have enough experience. You will confront a weird world. You

know nothing about it.

 193
Business leader E: I see around me individuals who have been in the USA and who get

back to Morocco to launch their business. The first thing I have noticed is that they were

exposed to a strong pressure to the point they come to my office crying that her parents,

her tante, or her husband blamed her to get back to Morocco leaving behind him a

confortable social situation and accept taking risks by creating a new venture with all

uncertainties it implies.

There is the cultural challenge that stops [the entrepreneur]. For example: you should

trust nobody. You risk to be swindled. Association is an already announced failure…The

second challenge is related to our behavior that is not in the sharing. We are individualists

in our approach. This is a sociocultural factor that has nothing to do with competence.

Business leader K: In what looks to belong to a French culture, there is a distrust of

academic staff and faculty towards the private business sector. It’s we and them, as if

there is something incompatible and that [happens] unconsciously in the minds of some

faculty. In this underlying culture, there is this kind of belief that what happens at the

university is noble compared in value to what could happen in the professional world that

is associated to business. So the mindset of some individuals within university could be

an obstacle. There is resistance to change because [entrepreneurship learning] calls for

openness, collaboration, trust, and going out some comfort zones.

Subtheme: Organizational Challenge

Student A: In each project, there is a communication manager in charge to communicate

on social media. But in case there is not a communication manager among students, I
 194
think that university should take the lead to communicate those actions and promote the

institution. Because people will see that students of UIC are leaders [and] are managers.

Student D: The only obstacle that might happen is the obstacle of budget and funding. In

fact, a project requires a budget that depends on the project. The university might either

afford that budget or collaborate with other institutions to afford it. For example,

[leadership may] collaborate with a national bank to secure debts under the warrant of the

university that champion the project.

Academic leader G: I think honestly that we still have a long way to go in the field [of

entrepreneurship learning]. We have to be sincere. I think that there actually exist some

isolated initiatives organized at the level of the university. But those initiatives deserve to

be coordinated, assessed, and associated to faculty and staff. However, this initiative does

not exist. There is a compartmentalization among academic units, which I misunderstand.

Because, today, all types of knowledge are linked together, there should be a synergy

among different academic units to establish a vision and a strategy to go in the direction

of learning. We can’t stay confined in a pure traditional approach.

Faculty from the business unit should be involved in the learning process.